Baroness Verma

Sandip Verma, having been created Baroness Verma, of Leicester in the County of Leicestershire, for life—Was, in her robes, introduced between the Baroness Seccombe and the Baroness Morris of Bolton.

Lord Leach of Fairford

Charles Guy Rodney Leach, Esquire, having been created Baron Leach of Fairford, of Fairford in the County of Gloucestershire, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Howell of Guildford and the Lord Powell of Bayswater.

Montenegro

Lord Anderson of Swansea: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What is their response to the result of the referendum in Montenegro.

Lord Triesman: My Lords, on 13 June 2006, the Prime Minister wrote to President Vujanovic and Prime Minister Djukanovic to put it on record that the United Kingdom recognises the Republic of Montenegro as an independent sovereign state. Also on 13 June, the Foreign Secretary wrote to Foreign Minister Vlahovic on similar lines and stated that we would be seeking to establish diplomatic relations with Montenegro, including the upgrading of the British office in Podgorica to an embassy.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: My Lords, a nation has been reborn, and it sees its future in the European Union. Does my noble friend agree that, after what appears to be a velvet divorce, it is now important to build a new relationship between Montenegro and Serbia and indeed with the wider region? Will he say, not only as he has said that we will recognise the nation and have an ambassador, but when we will have a resident ambassador in Podgorica; and also say what we understand to be the next likely steps in the stabilisation and association agreement after the European Council decision last weekend, bearing in mind that Montenegro comes to the table with clean hands, both in respect of the Kosovo conflict and in its relationship with the war crimes tribunal?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I do not have a date as yet for the opening of the mission. We regard it as important. Montenegro is a relatively small country, with a population of 673,000, but it is strategically important to the Balkans. For those reasons, we want to make rapid progress. Part of that progress must be to reassert relationships with Serbia and other countries in the region to ensure that they all move forward through the process of discussions about the EU and NATO. We are actively working on those features.

Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, will the Minister ensure that this country, in particular, gives a very warm welcome to this new small nation as it joins the comity of nations in the world, including world institutions such as the United Nations? Is he aware that Montenegro is a small nation of low taxation and dynamic people with very high levels of education and a real determination to develop prosperity and growth, which they have been denied in the past, and that it could yet set itself up as an example to the rest of Europe on how to proceed economically and socially? We should therefore be very pleased that this nation has now joined the nations of Europe.

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I share that view. It is fair to add that it developed a relationship with the West during the Milosevic era because it was prepared to look at privatisation and many of the other things that were not considered in the region. Aspects of its economy are indeed promising, and, if it is possible to develop tourism, that will become increasingly significant in generating income and foreign currency. These are promising areas for the relationship. We will work closely on the basis that the noble Lord described, working with a nation that has already taken very big steps despite its small size.

Lord Chidgey: My Lords, although the actions taken by the Government so far are to be welcomed, does the Minister agree that a vote for independence of 55 per cent is hardly overwhelming and that the tensions in the ethnic communities in Montenegro are still fierce and raw? What specific actions are the Government planning over the coming months to progress the stabilisation and association process of the EU, in the particular context of making sure that the Copenhagen criteria are maintained and highlighted throughout the coming years, not just in Montenegro but in the whole of the western Balkans?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, there are issues in the western Balkans. Montenegro, although it has separated itself reasonably successfully from most of them, still presents some of those questions. We have, in the context of stabilisation and association agreements, supported Commissioner Rehn's decision to ensure that talks take place with the EU because continued failure on the part of any of the states emerging in the region to co-operate fully with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia would be an impediment. A range of such issues need to be overcome, but we are working on them. We have made it clear in the European Union that we will be an active participant. It is absolutely of a piece with our desire to see the enlargement of the EU and to see countries that have not had a conspicuously democratic past being drawn into the EU's family of democratic nations.

Railways: Network Rail

Baroness Scott of Needham Market: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether they will indicate in what way Network Rail is accountable to Parliament and to United Kingdom taxpayers.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, Network Rail is a private sector company limited by guarantee whose board is accountable to approximately 100 members drawn from railway stakeholders. Network Rail is accountable to the public interest through independent regulation by the Office of Rail Regulation. It is also accountable to its key funders, the Secretary of State for Transport and Scottish Ministers, and its freight and train operating company customers.

Baroness Scott of Needham Market: My Lords, Network Rail's decision to reject Merseytravel's application to maintain its own lines has meant that in effect Network Rail runs its own monopoly. Given the Government's failure to intervene in that case, do the Government have any powers to force Network Rail to allow benchmarking of its currently rather high costs and opaque systems? More important, if they have those powers, are they prepared to use them?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, the noble Baroness has raised the Merseytravel issue before, and I repeat the point that I made on that occasion: Network Rail did not think that the economic and financial case had been made by Merseytravel. On the more general issue, as I indicated in my original Answer, Network Rail is subject to the Office of Rail Regulation, which establishes its benchmarks, and is ultimately answerable to the Secretary of State.

Lord Hanningfield: My Lords, even with the annual £5 billion public subsidy going into Britain's railways, the Government have at the moment banned train operating companies from putting on extra services to cope with overcrowding, by specifying the maximum number of trains that can be run on any line on a particular day. Is not such micro-management forcing people off rail and on to roads?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, in the original Question the noble Baroness was seeking extra micro-management and now the noble Lord is arguing exactly the opposite case. The Government have got it just right in between those two positions. The Government retain overall responsibility; that goes without saying. The Secretary of State for Transport is responsible overall—as are Scottish Ministers in relation to the Scottish Parliament—but Network Rail is responsible for the track and the train operating companies are responsible for the operation of their services. We have seen a significant improvement in rail in recent years. For instance, the punctuality of trains has gone up from 79 per cent to 86 per cent—that is still far below what we aim at and want to achieve, but it is a signal improvement.

Lord Tanlaw: My Lords, is the Minister aware of the fact—it is confirmed by my declared interest—that Network Rail is not replacing 60 year-old conductor rails with a composite alternative? That means that 8 per cent will be added to the electricity bill and an extra 46 metric tonnes of carbon will be added to the atmosphere for every kilometre travelled on third rail every year for the next 60 years. Why does the chairman of Network Rail, who is also chairman of the Carbon Trust, continue the practice, which rail companies elsewhere have long since abandoned for economic and environmental reasons? The Minister says that there are no shareholders, so to whom is the chairman of Network Rail and the Carbon Trust responsible for a company policy that is at complete variance with taxpayers' interests and the Government's declared intention of carbon emission reduction?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for identifying an area in which rail can contribute to the reduction in carbon emissions. The biggest reduction in such emissions that the transport system, particularly rail, can contribute is by reducing the use of cars in favour of rail travel. That is why we want to see rail services expand, and the House will recognise that the railway service is expanding apace. The nature of the conductor rail, to which the noble Lord drew attention, involves a highly technical question to which there is a highly technical answer.

Earl Attlee: My Lords, when will London rail commuters be able to use their Oyster card on the rail system, and who is responsible for making that happen?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, as the noble Earl will recognise, there is considerable pressure for that facility to be developed. The Mayor of London has been forthright in his request that it should be. The decision lies with the train operating companies, but considerable progress is being made. There is real optimism that in the not-too-distant future we will see the use of Oyster cards for rail passengers as well as for the Tube network.

Earl Ferrers: My Lords, in what way is Network Rail accountable to Parliament? Am I right in believing that the Minister's original Answer was that it was not?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, it is not directly responsible to Parliament, but then I am sure that the noble Earl recognises that no private company—that is what Network Rail is—is so accountable. It is a private company that is responsible to its stakeholders in the rail industry, and it is governed by the Office of Rail Regulation. Ultimately, it receives demands from the Secretary of State. Within a year or so, the Secretary of State will make demands of it in terms of expectation of output. So there is responsibility through a chain that, eventually, rests with the Secretary of State, but there is no direct control of Network Rail, because that is the nature of its establishment under the Railways Act 2005.

The Earl of Mar and Kellie: My Lords, the amount of money made available to Network Rail has increased. How can either Parliament be sure that the consequential outcome is value for money?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, that is an important point. Network Rail is on course to hit the target of a 31 per cent improvement in efficiency between 2004 and 2009. The improvements that have been effected in its operations during the first two years indicate that it will hit that target.

House of Lords: Reform

Lord Goodlad: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	In light of the passage of legislation in the current Session of Parliament, whether they propose to introduce legislation to limit to 60 sitting days the time which Bills may spend in the House of Lords.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, as we made clear last week before the Joint Committee on Conventions, the Government have no immediate plans to legislate in that way. We wish to await the proposals of the Joint Committee before making any decisions. The Government's interest is less with the method and much more with the objective of the 60-day proposal, which is to ensure that the consideration of government business in this House takes place within a reasonable time.

Lord Goodlad: My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for that reply. Does he agree that Bills that have taken more than 60 sitting days in this Session have done so more for the—wholly legitimate—convenience of the Government's business managers, rather than because of any prolonged proceedings in your Lordships' House or disagreements between the two Houses? The Commissioner for Older People (Wales) Bill, the Fraud Bill and the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill are all cases in point, as is the Charities Bill, which passed its proceedings here at the beginning of last November but has still not had a Second Reading in the House of Commons. In the case of the Company Law Reform Bill, 887 amendments were made, 779 of them by the Government. Does the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor agree that rushed legislation is unlikely to be better legislation and that the public interest is likely to be best served by retaining the maximum flexibility in our proceedings?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I agree with the first part of the noble Lord's proposition: often, Bills go over a reasonable time because Governments delay them. We have done it, and other Governments have done it in the past. The noble Lord, as a former Chief Whip in another place, will be aware of that. If one seeks to identify a time that equals a reasonable time, that will deal just as much with the problem of the Government delaying Bills as with other people doing so.
	I emphasise that the purpose of the proposal is not to restrict discussion to something less than a reasonable time; it is to ensure that there is a reasonable time. Bills delayed by the Government are one example; another example of where there is a problem relates to what the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde—who, sadly, is not in his place—said in September 2003. He said that, if we introduced a particular Lords reform Bill, we would have trouble with the rest of our programme. Again, that is a wrong approach. The other area comprises cases such as the Animal Health Bill, which came to this House in December 2001 and, as a result of a dilatory Motion supported by the Opposition Front Bench, did not get out of this House for 11 months.
	The one thing on which, I think, we all agree is that we should give Bills a reasonable time for consideration. If there are problems such as those to which the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, referred, threats such as those made by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, or the proposition that occurred with the Animal Health Bill, we should seek to address them. That is what our proposal is intended to do.

Lord Morgan: My Lords, would not the case for criticising the Government be stronger if our procedures did not allow for so much extraordinary repetition of the same point made under different headings, which is often a substitute for debate rather than a reinforcement of it?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I do not seek to say that people in this House filibuster. I am always admiring of people in the House, who are very keen to ensure that the point made by the previous eight speakers should be properly understood by the other three speakers left in the House. I do not think that it is repetition; it is getting one's message across.

Lord Dykes: My Lords, does the noble and learned Lord agree that any pragmatic combination of the reform of composition and the internal procedures cannot in any way be accompanied by a reduction of the powers of this House?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, the 60-day proposal is not intended to reduce the powers; it has no effect on the ability of the House to change legislation that comes from another place. Nor does it affect the amount of time that Parliament as a whole needs to scrutinise legislation. It is not about reducing powers. We do not want to reduce powers. We want to give effect to what I think everyone believes is the convention in this House; that government business should be considered within a reasonable time.

Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, when the noble and learned Lord mentions the errors, omissions and sins of previous Governments, will he please ensure that he agrees that that is a rotten excuse for doing wrong now? Many of us fear that this Government consistently aim at reducing what used to be known as the sovereignty of Parliament.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord will accept that, in accepting the criticisms made by the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, I included this Government as well as previous Governments. My remarks were addressed to the Opposition in relation to what the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, said. I also wish to make it absolutely clear that we do not remotely wish to reduce either the powers of this House or the powers of the sovereign Parliament.

Lord Soley: My Lords, does the noble and learned Lord agree that in the House of Commons time is used as a weapon to force the Government of the day to make changes? If we make the mistake of doing the same here, we risk becoming a carbon copy of the House of Commons. The strength of this place is good scrutiny, which does not necessarily take masses of time, as it occasionally does in the House of Commons.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I certainly agree that time is used as a weapon in the other place. In the proposals that we make, we wish in no way to reduce the time that it takes properly and reasonably to scrutinise a Bill. The proposal seeks to deal with the three areas that I have identified. It would make the Chamber more efficient, and in no way restricted, in dealing with those issues.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, would the noble and learned Lord concede that one of the problems of legislation these days is its sheer volume and complexity and that the proper scrutiny of voluminous and complex legislation necessarily takes more time? Would he also be so good as to give us another example of unreasonably long consideration here, besides that of the Animal Health Bill?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I agree entirely with the first proposition. As Bills become more complex, they need more time to be considered. The Company Law Reform Bill is a good example of a Bill that takes considerable time to scrutinise. That is why the proposal focuses on what is a reasonable time. The longer and more complex the Bill, the longer it will take to scrutinise.

Lord Shutt of Greetland: My Lords, will the noble and learned Lord say one way or the other whether the Government want to legislate on the 60-day limit or whether it is an aspiration? It occurs to me that there could be priorities and emergencies, even under the most splendid and perfect business management, which mean that legislation has to be delayed.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I could not agree more. Any scheme that involves setting a time limit must be flexible for precisely the reasons given by the noble Lords, Lord Shutt of Greetland and Lord Phillips. In our manifesto, we said that we wanted to legislate on this, but we said in our evidence to the Joint Committee what I say today: if there is a way of achieving this end by other means, we will certainly listen.

Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I think that we all agree that repetition is boring, and we are glad that the Government are now apparently postponing or shelving this proposal. However, I cannot understand from the noble and learned Lord why the proposition was ever made in the first place. The Opposition have no interest in pursuing Bills beyond a reasonable time. We are not interested in that procedure at all; indeed, it has never been our practice. As the noble and learned Lord and others have recognised, Bills are often delayed as a result of a vast range of government amendments and vast complexity, or are deliberately shelved by government business managers. What is the point of removing flexibility? Why not let the whole matter drop completely?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I do not think that we want to remove flexibility, but, with great respect to the noble Lord, he did not deal remotely with the problem raised by his Leader, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. He did not deal at all with the position on the Animal Health Bill. As part of his Front Bench, he supported a dilatory Motion in respect of a government Bill that could have been amended if this House had thought that there was something wrong with it. No consideration was given to it for 11 months, so the noble Lord does not deal with that point. Nor does he deal with the point about government Bills being delayed.

Earl Ferrers: My Lords, does the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor realise that his original Answer will give satisfaction in so far as he said that the Government did not intend to include any limitation? Does he not agree that, if the Government were to do that, it would introduce a guillotine in your Lordships' House? For all the reasons that have been given in the questions, that would be highly undesirable.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, it is not remotely sought to introduce a guillotine. The debate, I think, is one in which we could engage constructively. I have identified the three specific sorts of problem that we seek to deal with. Everyone in this place should think about how we deal with such problems. That is what we are trying to do on a cross-party basis.

Internet Gambling

Viscount Falkland: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What plans they have to combat any increase in gambling addictions caused by internet gambling.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, the Government recognise that internet gambling carries potential risks, which existing legislation cannot adequately address. The Gambling Act 2005 makes provision to regulate British-based internet gambling operators. The new regime will include specific licence conditions on social responsibility, including measures to minimise addiction.
	Regulating remote gambling is a global challenge, so the Government have also called the first ever international summit on it. We will use that forum to explore the development of minimum international standards for remote gambling regulation.

Viscount Falkland: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that Answer. Are we not in somewhat uncharted territory on knowing exactly the social damage done by addiction to gambling when set against today's opportunities and changing public attitudes? As he has implied, it is difficult to deal with internet gambling satisfactorily. Does he agree that as a first step it may be useful to look at the advertising of internet gambling, which in some way may throw light on the problems that we will face?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I agree with the noble Viscount and his constructive suggestion. We could limit advertising on the London Underground, for instance, by internet companies based in Britain. We have other means of regulating companies based in Europe. If they are not based in Europe, we want to operate advertising restrictions, and we are looking at ways to implement them.

Lord Maxton: My Lords, quite rightly, we are concerned about the possibility of people becoming addicted to internet gambling, but will the Government assure us that they believe that the benefits that the internet generally provide far outweigh any problems from gambling? Can the Minister further assure us that we will not seek to regulate the internet to the point where we begin to lose the benefits of it?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I do not think that it is practicable to regulate the internet, even if that were an aspiration. Of course, my noble friend is right: the internet provides the widest range of free information to which citizens have ever had access. But certain socially undesirable practices can be carried out on the internet, and certain forms of the promotion of gambling still require regulation where we are able to do so. That is why we are talking in international terms about limited, necessary regulation in a specific area.

Lord Roberts of Llandudno: My Lords, is not this largely the fault of the Government? In 2003, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport stated that it wished to see Britain become a world leader in online gambling, and in August last year the Minister wrote to me saying that that remained the Government's view. Is that not a totally irresponsible attitude to take, particularly on the morning when the Consumer Credit Counselling Service has reported that extreme debt is getting worse by the day? We are fighting against poverty and social disadvantage and trying to protect the vulnerable. Is it not time that the Government began to discourage rather than encourage online and other gambling?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, debt is a wide-ranging matter to which gambling contributes a small amount. Only a limited number of addicted gamblers get into difficulty. However, on the more general point, the issue is straightforward: if we are not prominent in encouraging online gambling in this country, it will be located elsewhere, making it more difficult for us effectively to regulate socially responsible gambling. It is not a question of us standing by and doing nothing because doing nothing would produce the worst of all worlds.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am president of GamCare, the charity that supports those who have problems with gambling. Does not the Minister agree that there has been a certain amount of misrepresentation of the alleged increase in problem gambling referred to in the Question? Some of that arises from an increase in the number of calls made to the GamCare helpline and demands for counselling. Is it not much more likely that the increase in the number of calls being received by GamCare arises from the fact that the charity is now much better known? It is advertised on every fruit machine in the country, and its services are more widely appreciated.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I do not think that anyone can speak with greater authority on these issues than my noble friend, not only because of his presidency of GamCare, the most prominent institution concerned with the welfare of gamblers, but also in light of the fact that he was responsible for the Gambling Act and knows about the degree of regulation that we have been able to introduce in order to ensure that gambling is subject to social responsibility.

Baroness Howe of Idlicote: My Lords—

Viscount Astor: My Lords—

Baroness Amos: My Lords, we have had 30 minutes of Questions.

Business

Lord Grocott: My Lords, with the leave of the House, a Statement will be repeated later today by my noble friend Lord Rooker on the Rural Payments Agency. The Statement will be taken at a convenient time after 12.30 pm.

Business of the House: Debates Today

Baroness Amos: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
	Moved, That the debate on the Motion in the name of the Baroness Gale set down for today shall be limited to 3 hours and that in the name of the Lord Giddens to 2½ hours.—(Baroness Amos.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Budget (No. 2) (Northern Ireland) Order 2006

Water and Sewerage Services (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Northern Ireland) Order 2006

Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Northern Ireland) Order 2006

Pensions Appeal Tribunals (Armed Forces and Reserve Forces Compensation Scheme) (Rights of Appeal) Amendment Regulations 2006

Pensions Appeal Tribunals (Additional Rights of Appeal) (Amendment) Regulations 2006

European Organization for Nuclear Research (Privileges and Immunities) Order 2006

Baroness Amos: My Lords, I beg to move the six Motions standing in my name on the Order Paper.
	Moved, That the draft orders and regulations be referred to a Grand Committee.—(Baroness Amos.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Work/Life Balance

Baroness Gale: rose to call attention to the importance of work/life balance; and to move for Papers.
	My Lords, work/life balance is about people having a measure of control over when, where and how they work. It is achieved when an individual's right to a fulfilled life inside and outside paid work is accepted and respected as the norm, to the mutual benefit of the individual, business and society. This is how the Work Foundation has described work/life balance. But most of the time when one talks about work/life balance one is thinking of parents and children.
	The importance of work/life balance is growing. Today's families are different from those in the past. I contrast today's family with my family life as a child; my mother was always at home and my father was the one who went out to work. It was unusual for women to be in paid employment—at least in the area where I lived. I can remember that at school there was only one girl in my class whose mother went out to work. We all felt that the idea of a mother going out to work and not being at home when we came home from school was rather strange.
	All that is now different and the lives of women and men have changed greatly over just one or two generations. More women are in paid employment than ever before. The birth-rate is falling, with more women now choosing either to have a small family or not to have any children at all. Those who choose to have children have to juggle and balance their lives between earning a living and taking care of their children. Fathers play a bigger role than ever in bringing up their children. The mother and father now believe that it is important for both of them to play a part in the care of their children and also to make a contribution to the income of the family.
	Working while one is raising children can bring many pressures. Mothers—and increasingly, fathers—need and want time to be with their children. If they are going out to work they need to know that their children will be well cared for. In the past, when the extended family lived nearby there was always the grandmother or the aunt to take care of the children. Of course, there are still many grandparents who play a major role in the care of their grandchildren.
	The majority of women who go out to work do so in places such as factories, shops and offices. These women are often among the low-paid workers of this country. They need the help and support that the Government should, and now do, give. The implementation of the national minimum wage has been a great help to the low paid, of which women make up the majority. It is essential that families get assistance in raising their children. But it does pose some questions. Can the Government influence how families are organised and can they give the help and support that is needed?
	Since the Government were elected in 1997 they have recognised that parents need help and support in order to carry out their parental responsibilities and to enable them to make a worthwhile economic contribution to their family and society. In its strategy document of 2003, Balancing Work and Family Life: Enhancing choice and support for parents, the Government talked about the key drivers of change behind the need for work/life balance. This document recognised that family life is changing and that the mother no longer stays at home while the father goes out to work. There has been a transformation in the way that families organise their work with more couples now going out to work and more lone parents being employed.
	Another document published by the Government in 2004 outlined its policy with a 10-year strategy on childcare, showing its vision of ensuring that every child would get the best start in life and giving parents more choice about how to balance work and family life. It outlined the plans for flexible working, extending maternity and paternity leave, and plans for high-quality childcare.
	Since 2003 parents and others, such as guardians, who are responsible for looking after children under six—or under 18 if the child is disabled—have a legal right to ensure that requests that they make for flexible working arrangements are taken seriously by the employer. When parents are raising their children there will be times when working different hours and different periods—but not necessarily working fewer hours—will be required in order for them to continue working. If that can be achieved, it will benefit both the employee and the employer. The employer will retain the skills of the employee and the employee will continue to work and, at the same time, take care of their children and spend quality time with them. Flexible working has been a great success, so much so that there are suggestions that it should be expanded.
	Family-friendly policies are of particular importance, and I am pleased to note that the Government have been instrumental in bringing such policies about through their legislation. For example, tax benefit policies such as the working tax credit and the child tax credit assist in encouraging parents to take employment. Other policies, such as maternity and paternity leave and parental leave, go a long way to help parents deal with a family and working life. Other measures to be implemented include extending maternity and adoption leave from six to nine months from April 2007, towards the goal of a year's paid leave by the end of this Parliament; extending the right to request flexible working to carers of adults from April 2007; giving fathers a right to up to 26 weeks' additional paternity leave, some of which can be paid if the mother returns to work; and the right to allow one adoptive parent to take 26 weeks' leave and another additional adoption leave with a total entitlement of 52 weeks.
	Parental leave of 13 weeks will be available for those who have one year of service with an employer. Although that will be unpaid, it should be important to parents. As all parents know there are emergencies where children are concerned, such as childhood illnesses or certain school holidays, which can make life difficult for parents if they cannot take time off to deal with them. Allowing time off for dependants is an important right. It will allow employees to take a reasonable amount of time off work to deal with certain unexpected or sudden emergencies, and to make any necessary longer term arrangements.
	Fathers now play a bigger and better role in raising their children than ever before. The Equal Opportunities Commission recently published a document called Twenty-first Century Dad, which says that today's father wants a closer relationship with his children and is willing to reorder his priorities to achieve it. More men are taking a caring role, with 93 per cent of fathers taking time off around the birth of their child. I can remember a time when fathers were not allowed near when mothers were giving birth, so that has been a huge change. It is a really good idea that fathers are present when the child is being born. In 2005, 31 per cent of fathers of babies worked flexitime, compared to 11 per cent in 2002. Some 58 per cent of fathers of babies do not see being the breadwinner as the most important aspect of being a father. The majority of fathers of children under the age of one say that they do not want to leave childcare to their partners alone, and 70 per cent want to be more involved with their child.
	The role of fathers is changing, as is the role of mothers, with women's employment rising from 45 per cent in 1971 to over 66 per cent. Women increasingly need the father to share responsibilities. It seems that many employers are making it easier for male employees to be involved in the lives of their children. Eight out of 10 employers believe that family-friendly policies improve the recruitment and retention of staff. Employers have been supportive of the new right to request flexible working, and the majority believe that it has no negative impact on their organisation.
	I would like to mention one example of a great success. The Britain's Best Boss 2006 competition—I did not know such a competition existed—was organised by the work/life balance organisation Working Families and Lloyds TSB. The winner, Geotechnical Instruments, has 85 employees. There are 40 different working patterns, including part-time and term-time-only working. The company also offers childcare vouchers, free medical insurance, counselling sessions and free breakfast and fruit. This has had very positive effects for the business, now a successful small manufacturer with staff turnover down from over 30 per cent to almost zero, and very low absentee levels. I am sure that there must be a waiting list for jobs in this company; it seems like a very good employer.
	Does this example not prove that businesses and employees working together in such a positive way is beneficial to the employee and the employer? The Government have recognised that the lives of men and women are changing greatly and they have responded to the needs of families. However "family" is defined today, it is not just about a husband, a wife and two children. There are many different types of family. That is why it is so good to see the legislation that has been brought in to deal with this. It has proved very popular. For example, flexible working—which I have spoken about—has been a great success. It has been praised by the Equal Opportunities Commission and employers. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development has supported the Government's flexible working laws. There is such support, it has argued, that the right to ask for flexible working should be extended to all workers. The idea that flexible working will one day be available to everyone at work is something I can envisage.
	The organisation, Working Families, has said:
	"Increasingly, the importance of social capital is mentioned in the debate about work/life balance. Effectively functioning communities rely on a network of volunteers, whether school governors or those supporting their neighbours, and these people need time to be able to participate. A work/ life balance should be available for all employees, not just those with family or caring commitments, to maximize their own and their community's potential".
	I can agree with these views, although I also imagine that those goals will be realised some time in the future. Flexible working has already proved a success for those who have taken advantage of it, so employers would probably welcome this idea as much as employees. It would probably reduce absenteeism and stress levels, and encourage a better working environment. The measures implemented by the Government over the past several years to assist with work/ life balance have ensured that people can take a job outside the home in the knowledge that they are supported in such a way as to allow them to carry out their jobs to the satisfaction of their employer, and—more importantly—to ensure that they fulfil their family responsibilities. As with all good things, people are asking for more.
	In conclusion, can I say how much I look forward to hearing the maiden speeches of my noble friend Lady Kingsmill and the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester? Of course, I also look forward to the Minister's response. I beg to move to Papers.

Lord Selsdon: My Lords, I find myself in an extraordinarily difficult position for numerous reasons that will become clear. I am, of course, the only male Conservative speaker in this debate, as well as being the only male Back Bench speaker and the only Conservative speaker. It is such a pity that our debates on Thursdays are not, as they were, on Wednesdays. What we tend to have on Thursdays is a mutual admiration society of the speakers speaking to themselves. In a debate it was always assumed that the speaker knew what he or she was talking about and other people would listen. My whole training in life has come from Wednesday debates. I would urge the Government to change things; if they could, it would be much appreciated.
	There is something more embarrassing, as well. I have stayed to the end of every debate I have spoken in for 43 years, and had intended to do so today. Then I find suddenly that there is a Statement on agriculture that interests me, which intervenes. I had allowed three and a half hours, because I have to catch a plane and speak tonight. I hope the House will forgive me if I break a golden rule but it really was not my fault, and I had no idea until I arrived here that there would be this intervention.
	I will try to speak from experience. I always try to take a text of the whole life. Maybe it is As You Like It:
	"At first the infant,
	Mewling and puking"—
	in his mother's, and now father's, "arms".
	I suffer from the problem in life that during the war I was exported at the age of two—my sister was under one—to the United States and Canada, and then, for various sad reasons, did not see my mother or father until after D-Day. When I returned, no one had bothered to tell me that my mother's name was Lady Selsdon while my and my sister's names were Malcolm and Gail Mitchell-Thomson. In a slightly Victorian England way we half shook hands as we arrived at some railway station with labels around our necks, and I swapped my label with Harrison because I wanted to make sure I got a good mother. I did not see my father until 1951.
	Our parents did not tell us that we had a different name, so as children we had to work out: who were they? Who was my mother? Was I adopted, or was I illegitimate? Being fairly bright at the age of seven, I concluded that I was illegitimate. When I came to your Lordships' House and found it was difficult to prove my legitimacy, I was told I had to find two people who had known my mother and father when they were bachelor and spinster, both of whom had been over 21 at the time, but my mother got married at the age of 19. This gave me a permanent feeling of insecurity.
	This is the greatest proportion of women who have ever spoken in a debate in your Lordships' House, and having a great admiration and affection for women, I feel humbled and fully supportive. However, I will try in my way to explain the difficulties of a whole-life operation. If, by an accident of birth, you have an appointment to this place, you feel you have to go, but if you have a full-time job your employers in general will say, "What are you doing sloping off to the House of Lords?". I encountered the same problem that applies to many people who wish to serve in public life: the system somehow means that if you leave your commercial world even for part of a day a week, you get sidetracked or downgraded. I believe that people should be able to contribute to public and private life. The outside experience that people can bring to this House is helpful, as well as the experience they take back. I repeat that I am for ever grateful for what I have learnt here.
	We move on to another part of life: the boy crawling like a snail unwillingly to school. I believe strongly in the family unit. I do not believe there is any division between political parties. I believe in equality all round and in hard work, and I do not believe in long holidays. When you go to school these days, you are encouraged to stay there as long as possible. You have therefore lost a small part of your working life. If we look at the continent of Europe, which is down from a 40-hour week to a 35-hour week—and in Germany often a 28-hour week—we find that the students feel they should work at universities without being paid but with full grants until the age of 27 or 28, and then expect immediately to have a job.
	We have long lost the ability to provide people with early training or apprenticeships, and we are desperately short of people who think of something other than money. I am not talking about a consumer society, but it always shatters me to think that the future of the British economy depends on how many people you can cram into a mall or a shopping precinct on a Saturday, or even a Sunday morning.
	What do people do when they are not working? I had the advantage—or disadvantage—for six years to chair a body called the Greater London and South East Council for Sport and Recreation, responsible for the central planning of sport and recreation in Greater London, Surrey, Sussex and Kent. I had an executive committee of 152, including my mother—who happened to be the first woman Lord Mayor, which is where my support for women may partly come from—and a full committee of 352, appointed originally by Peter Shaw and then regurgitated by Michael Heseltine. In that midst, we found the bureaucracy that came with differences of political opinion, elitism or facilities. Despite the desire to promote more outside activity, ILEA was closing down playing fields and facilities were disappearing.
	The sadness was that when I was dealing with ILEA it was deemed appropriate for me to be known as a Labour Peer; and in other places I was a Conservative Peer. That was often the advice of Tower Hamlets, Peter Shore's constituency. I used to speak to support him when he was being re-elected: I always thought that he could have been an excellent Prime Minister. I would say simply: "He appointed me. Vote for him. The Conservatives will get in anyway but we need a good Opposition". On this topic, there is no opposition.
	During that period, I had quite a lot to do with Clive Jenkins whom noble Lords may remember. With his colleague, Berman, he wrote two books: The Collapse of Work and The Leisure Shock. Basically, they stated that people will work less and less and have more and more leisure and they will not be happy because they will not know what to do or how to manage their leisure time. I believe that that is a worrying aspect. We now see people not starting work until they are 27. However, we then have a major problem at the other end. They stop work earlier. They all announce that they would like to take premature or early retirement. When I was at Midland Bank my boss was the chief general manager. One day he said to me, "Malcolm, I am so pleased that I have managed to get the board to agree that the retirement age will come down from 65 to 60. What do you think?" He was called Malcolm, too. I said, "How old are you?" and he replied, "Oh my goodness, I'm 59½". I do not believe that retirement should be forced upon anybody but if you do not start work if you are professional or well trained until the age of 27 and you finish at 55 that brief period has to pay for the family growing up and for the elderly or, as they are now known in every language throughout Europe, the old timers—and an old timer starts at 52.
	So I have a proposition to put to the Minister, who is a very intelligent and sensible man. The claim is that not enough children are coming along and perhaps we have to "do a de Gaulle" and provide a grant to each family which has four children. The real answer is not to import more and more foreign labour but to look at our own resources and to get the young into part-time work as early as possible with the ability to continue part-time education. Where are the scientists? Where are the engineers? I found myself recently in Brussels with the Space Committee and secretary. Everyone said that there were no engineers. The Russians said, "We have plenty of them. We can lend them". So we often have people who train in a technical subject and then go into the City for more money.
	As regards the older population, if the Government were prepared to say that anyone who has reached the age of retirement may work for x hours a week without paying tax and at no cost to the employer—what is the point of social service payments and others at that age?—I believe that we could go a long way towards solving the problem of retirement. Your Lordships, of course, never retire and I sit down with the knowledge that very shortly, after 43 years, I may just make the average age.
	Wisdom in many of the developing countries which were developed long before us—whether it be Benin, or wherever—was based upon wise men. In your Lordships' House there are wise men and wise women. However, I wish that we could have our wisdom debates on a Wednesday. I am most grateful to the noble Baroness. I look forward to the glamour. It is appropriate that today should be Ladies' Day in the House of Lords and Ladies' Day at Ascot.

The Lord Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham: My Lords, we are most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, for initiating this timely debate. Like others in your Lordships' House, I very much look forward to the two maiden speeches.
	I was glad to support the aim of the recent Work and Families Bill which was to ensure that care givers in our society can better balance their home and work commitments. I strongly supported the Government's intention to extend the right to ask for flexible working to those carers of working age who struggle to balance their work and caring roles and whose needs were highlighted last week in Carers Week 2006.
	However, according to the 2006 TUC report, Out of Time, the United Kingdom has an extensive long hours culture with around 3.6 million employees regularly working more than 48 hours per week, and almost 5 million people working on average an extra day a week in unpaid overtime. The Mothers' Union has drawn attention to the detrimental effect that this is having on individuals, families, and, indeed, society in general. The Equal Opportunities Commission published this week research on the changes in fatherhood, Twenty-first Century Dad—quoted by the noble Baroness, Lady Gale—showing that seven out of 10 fathers would like to be more involved in childcare than they currently are, and that a third of working fathers work 48 hours or more per week.
	I have to admit that the Church of England is not immune to this. As the Bishop of Hulme pointed out recently, many clergy and bishops work 70 to 80 hours a week, and some believe that there is no limit to their availability. This leads to some clergy families feeling that they come second to the job and suffer as a result. The most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury drew attention last weekend to the important role of fathers at a conference on fatherhood organised by FLAME, a network within the Church of England working for family life and marriage enrichment. He emphasised the importance of "society and church" supporting and nurturing long-term fatherhood so that fathers can provide, along with mothers, an anchorage of quality of being, stability and taking responsibility for their children. Being involved in the caring and upbringing of children rather than working all the hours of the day is one way of doing this. Yet the TUC report shows that employers look more favourably on requests to work flexibly submitted by female members of staff.
	Working Families receives many calls from low-paid workers whose employers are not willing to offer flexible working patterns. For example, in its briefing it mentions a postal worker who had to leave his job as his employer would not change his shift patterns to fit in with his childcare needs. The family needed two incomes and his wife was unable to drop the children off at school, so he had asked either to change shifts or to finish earlier. Neither request was granted as there were currently no vacancies on other shifts and they were unwilling to let him leave early, even temporarily. The man is now claiming jobseeker's allowance while he looks for something new, but money is very tight.
	I have said before that I regret that the Government did not go far enough in the recent Work and Families Bill to allow the right to ask for flexible working to both fathers and mothers caring for children up to the age of 18. The Mothers' Union, which has campaigned consistently on this, believes that if flexible working was to become much more mainstream and not only associated with mothers of young children, fathers would have more opportunities to make the contribution to family life that they wish. In addition, mothers would not have to reduce their working hours so significantly, thus exacerbating the gender pay gap, in order to care for the children while fathers are working much longer hours.
	I urge the Government to reconsider their opposition and to introduce the right to request flexible working for both mothers and fathers of children up to 18. This would give couples an opportunity to establish an equal partnership and find the best way to share their responsibilities throughout the childhood of their offspring and to model a good work/life balance.

Baroness Kingsmill: My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, for introducing a debate on a subject which has been of interest to me for some years.
	My background as an employment lawyer and the work I have undertaken for the Government in chairing, first, a review of women's pay and employment in 2001 and, following this, an inquiry in 2003 into human capital management, has given me some insight into the workings of the labour market in the UK. I am pleased, therefore, in this, my first speech in your Lordships' House, to be able to make a contribution to this debate on the important issue of work/life balance.
	I had not intended to speak so soon after my introduction last week. I had planned to sit quietly on the Benches at the back until I was a little more familiar with the ways of the House. However, the kindness and encouragement that I have received from all sides, coupled with the relevance of the subject matter of the debate to my professional work over the past few years, has enabled me to overcome my reticence. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all of those who have offered help and guidance since my introduction—in particular to those such as the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, who scooped me up as I wandered lost in the corridors, and the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, who has been most patient as I have struggled to come to grips with the complexities of your Lordships' House.
	Work/life balance means different things to different people, but it is essentially about the way we work catching up with the way we live. In the 1950s and 1960s, most employers got a two-for-one deal. For every employee, usually a man, they got an extra person, usually a wife or mother, for free, who looked after the home and children so that their paid employee could work all the hours necessary. This is not the case anymore: most households cannot afford, or do not wish, to work like that; and 46 per cent of the labour market is now female and this continues to grow. The workplace needs to adapt to the way people now live, and this means creating a work environment that recognises that most people have to manage some kind of balance between paid work and the rest of life. The division of labour is not as simple as it used to be for most families.
	Work/life balance is not just about part-time mums, it is about older workers, younger workers, men and women, mothers and fathers—different balances for different people at different stages of their lives. For example, the labour market is ageing. This creates challenges around eldercare for some people, who are now nicknamed the "sandwich" generation, having both childcare and eldercare responsibilities. The ageing labour market also creates challenges around retirement and pensions, as many people need to work longer in order to maintain a sufficiently high income. Many may not wish or be able to work full time but would rather work more flexibly.
	Expectations of work have also changed over time. Work/life balance has featured, for the past four years, in the top three of most graduate wish-lists of the things they look for in a prospective employer. At all ages, people are increasingly expecting to be able to combine paid work with other things, whether they be interests, family responsibilities or simply seeing friends. A survey by the Work Foundation in 2003 found an equal spread between those with and without children in the 63 per cent of people who agreed that they would like to improve their work/life balance. Work needs to be thought about over the lifecycle better to reflect the way that people live and their different expectations at different stages of their lives.
	Another important aspect of work/life balance is about increasing UK productivity. Our long-hours culture, which has already been referred to, has not led to an increase in our output per worker; we lag well behind our US and major European competitors. Although the direct causal link between increased productivity and work/life balance is difficult to establish precisely, there are important indicators such as absenteeism, which the CBI estimates costs the UK some £12 billion a year.
	Individuals who have more control and autonomy over how, when and where they work are healthier and happier and so less likely to take time off work. Certainly, when I was a mother of young children in the early 1980s it was quite unacceptable in my law firm to work flexibly so that I could take care of my children. So, I took sick leave when they needed me and tried to make up the time later. But I always felt guilty. How I wish I could have had a more flexible working environment which recognised my work/life balance needs for the all-too-short period of my children's childhood. It was also ironic that, at the time, I was fighting on behalf of trade union clients for just those flexible policies which my own firm was unwilling to introduce.
	Work/life balance policies that enable people to manage their lives more comfortably also help companies to manage their business more efficiently. One large financial institution has recently found that where it introduced flexible working for those in direct contact with customers, customer satisfaction with the service they received significantly increased. It is much nicer to deal with people who are happier with their work/life balance. BT's experience has been that its home-workers are more satisfied with their work/life balance and it has discovered that there has been an increase of 31 per cent in productivity.
	In addition, work/life balance can contribute to individuals' health and well-being by giving them more control and autonomy. Michael Marmot's well known work Status Syndrome, which looked at Whitehall civil servants over several years, found that those in jobs with lower autonomy and control were much more likely to suffer from health problems: the security guard is more likely to suffer a heart attack than the chief executive, regardless of background. He found that work, and the way we are managed at work, has a significant impact on health and well-being, and work/life balance is one component of that.
	Certainly, the incidence of stress has been shown to increase with work intensification. Workplace stress is costly, both in money and the overall well-being of our society. A more enlightened and flexible approach to the way we work, to enable us to live more productive and happier lives, is an important goal for us all.

Baroness Howe of Idlicote: My Lords, it is a great pleasure—indeed, an honour—to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Kingsmill. I congratulate her on a quite outstanding maiden speech, which tells us of the pattern that women of her generation have been through. I say without hesitation that she is an outstanding example of those women who have taken full advantage of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and Equal Pay Act 1970. It has not been easy, however; one has heard the story so many times. But they have set the pattern so that others can follow and, hopefully, they will come through slightly more easily than those of the noble Baroness's generation.
	The noble Baroness's own expertise, when you read it, is quite amazing. She was a solicitor in many firms, but I notice that she also went into her own practice for a while. I wondered whether that was to fit in with bringing up children; I suspect that it was. She then came more into the public arena, in commerce and a number of important areas such as deputy chairman of the Competition Commission, formerly the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. She has made a very good start, and we will all look forward to hearing many more speeches from the noble Baroness. I hope that it will not interfere too much with her recreation of trying to keep fit.
	I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, for giving this House the opportunity to emphasise the importance of work/life balance. Indeed, achieving this objective for both sexes is one of the most important prerequisites for finally delivering the objective of this country's 30 year-old equal opportunities legislation. Given that the original sex discrimination and equal pay legislation was passed with almost unanimous support, it is fair to say that all Governments since have played some part in encouraging the implementation within government departments, as well as across the public and private sectors of our economy. As the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, has already pointed out, however, this Government undoubtedly have the best record.
	Since 1997 there has been radical legislation in a number of equal opportunity areas; for example, the opportunity for political parties to adopt positive discrimination when selecting candidates. But the Government have also taken action in a number of financial as well as legislative ways, to encourage women to work as well as bring up the next generation, or care for their aged or disabled relatives. All of these have been crucial in helping to increase the percentage of women with skills who are able to earn a living and of course contribute to their own pension. As your Lordships will know, a high proportion of the elderly in poverty in today's world are women, even though the Government have moved quite a way to help them.
	Noble Lords will have two recent Bills—the Work and Families Bill and the Childcare Bill—in mind in this debate. The vital ingredients in the Work and Families Bill that will facilitate an acceptable work/life balance are the increased maternity and paternity leave entitlements and the right for carers to ask for a period of flexible working. The Childcare Bill, equally vitally, places an increased duty on local authorities to ensure the availability of sufficient quality childcare to meet needs, especially the needs of the most deprived families and those wishing to take training to enable them to apply for work.
	These are excellent steps forward, but still more needs to be done to extend these rights if a really satisfactory and generally acceptable work/life balance is to be achieved. In my remaining time I want to underline why giving this priority should be seen not only as acceptable, but as a positive bottom-line benefit to our whole community. First, we need to publicise the findings of those companies that have embraced this approach—they have been mentioned and examples taken from them—and those that have retained valuable employees, and saved themselves the considerable cost of replacing and training new employees.
	Secondly, in this context, we need to talk about flexible, not part-time work. Part-time work is now seen as a low-pay route, which once entered effectively blocks the route to promotion on re-entry. I noticed that the Equal Opportunities Commission's latest report on fathers pays attention to flexible working. It states that the availability of part-time work has increased, yet it still attracts 1970s-style pay penalties. Women working part time are earning 40 per cent less per hour on average than men working full time; about the same as 30 years ago. So we have a good example from its latest research. Part-time work, it goes on to say, has a scarring effect on earnings. The longer a person is in part-time work, the lower their wages are likely to be, even if they return to work full time. If part-time work is seen as a low-pay route, then even if the employee has only intended part-time work to cover that initial child-rearing period, when they return those problems will remain.
	Thirdly—and by far the most important pre-requisite—if this is to succeed, we need to ensure that exactly the same terms for requesting and being granted flexible working apply, whatever the job level concerned, to fathers as well as mothers. Today, most couples are dual earners, and as Demos put it, even in 1996, in its report, Parental Leave: the Price of Family Values:
	"The old assumption that women will be full-time mothers is no longer tenable . . . men too are looking for a greater involvement in looking after their children. Both will look to governments—as well as employers—to give them greater flexibility".
	That, too, has been referred to.
	There is one other important aspect of all this. We are living longer, and many more women—about one-fifth of those born since 1940, we are told—will remain childless. As that reduced number of children will be helping to pay the pensions of those with children, childless employees' contributions should be to accept willingly a degree of inconvenience that might facilitate adequate parenting. For, to quote Demos again, there will be,
	"a shift from seeing parenthood primarily as a private choice, and children as a private good, towards seeing the quality and quantity of parenting as a public concern and well-brought up children as a public good."
	I have one final thought which, if it came about as a result of these changes, would bring a huge benefit to all: a return to earlier childbirth. The age at which women give birth has risen steadily since the equal opportunities legislation, partly because more and more women wait until they can negotiate a more acceptable return to flexible working with their employers. Some six years ago during one of your Lordships' debates, which looked at what more needs to be done to promote equal opportunities, the noble Lord, Lord Winston, made the important suggestion that, given this trend, more research was needed into human embryos to ensure safer, late childbirth.
	However, if women also began to feel reassured that their talents and experience would be equally valued if they had children at a younger age, then at least some of those potential dangers and costs, to individuals as well as to the whole community, could be avoided. The technical changes that have taken place during the 30 years since the Sex Discrimination Act has been in place have made flexible working—where one works and when one puts in one's hours—very much a matter of negotiation between the employee and the employer. If the employers can wake up to that and the possibility it gives them to have and retain the best quality workers, men and women, we will begin to see a faster move to achieve not only a better work/life balance for us all but a return to earlier parenthood.

Rural Payments Agency

Lord Rooker: My Lords, with the leave of the House I shall repeat a statement on the Rural Payments Agency made in another place earlier today by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The Statement is as follows:
	"With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a Statement on the Rural Payments Agency. In my Written Statement of 9 May, I promised to keep the House informed on progress made by the Rural Payments Agency on the single payments scheme. At Oral Questions today, no Questions on the SPS were on the Order Paper. I therefore thought it right to give honourable Members the chance to raise the issue. In summary, there has been some progress, but the situation is far from satisfactory in a number of respects. As of Tuesday 20 June, some £1.38 billion, representing over 90 per cent of the total fund, has now been paid to over 100,000 applicants; 82,571 claims have now been settled in full; and 18,785 applicants have received a partial payment and are awaiting their 'top-up' payment.
	"On 9 May I said that the top priority for the Rural Payments Agency would be those claims of more than €1,000 where no payment had been made. The number of such claimants in this category is now approximately 2,300. I recognise the hardship involved for them and deeply regret the distress caused. The Rural Payments Agency is taking further steps to pay those complex claims, including discussing issues direct with claimants and, where feasible, bringing parties together in cases of continuing disagreement. The Rural Payments Agency has written twice to all individuals concerned.
	"I also recognise the importance of the unresolved hill farm allowance payments. Of the approximately 10,500 eligible HFA claims, 5,000 have been paid in full and a further 900 authorised for partial payments. Full and partial payments are continuing to be made.
	"The European Union defined payment window for making 2005 single payment scheme payments runs from 1 December until 30 June. Work is continuing to pay as many claims as possible by 30 June. However, farming leaders have made representations to me on behalf of any farmers who do not receive the full sum due to them within the payment window—that is, by Friday next week. I have therefore authorised the Rural Payments Agency to make interest payments of the London InterBank offered rates plus 1 per cent calculated from 1 July, in respect of any payments where responsibility for the delay rests with the Rural Payments Agency. This will be subject to a minimum interest payment level of £50. Further details will be given on the timing of these payments once the Rural Payments Agency has assessed how they can be integrated most effectively into the existing payment schedule.
	"Work on delivery of the 2006 single payments scheme is under way. As I said on 9 May, the 2006 scheme year will be very challenging. The Rural Payment Agency's interim chief executive, Tony Cooper, has made an initial assessment of the task ahead. He has confirmed that in respect of customer service and management information there is no quick fix. Possible options for the 2007 scheme—for example, the use of a minimum payment level—are not available for 2006.
	"Against this background, farming leaders have understandably called for partial payments to be made under the 2006 single payments scheme. I have both discussed the need for the necessary EU legislation to make partial payments with Commissioner Fisher-Boel and authorised the Rural Payments Agency to start work on necessary systems. However, until the RPA's chief executive has had an opportunity to make a realistic assessment of the prospects for full payments, I do not want to commit to a particular timetable or specify whether or when partial payments might be made. Initial validation of 2006 claims is under way and detailed validation should start next month. By the time the House returns after the Summer Recess, therefore, we should have a better understanding of the prospects for the 2006 scheme and I will make a further Statement then.
	"Given the position on the 2006 scheme, I have decided to simplify to the maximum possible extent the arrangements for the incorporation into the single payments scheme of additional support arising from last November's landmark EU sugar reform. In practice, that means that £52 million will be added entirely to entitlements held by sugar beet producers who meet defined criteria, rather than some of the funds being used to increase the flat rate value of all entitlements. Further details, including on arrangements for 2007, will be announced in due course.
	"I can also report that an EU regulation has been adopted which provides for all 2006 single payments scheme claims to be accepted without penalty until 15 June. This extra time, above and beyond the extension to 31 May I referred to in my Statement on 9 May, will mean that around 4,000 farmers will not now be penalised. I am grateful to the European Commission for its understanding on this issue.
	"The fundamental review of the Rural Payments Agency that my right honourable friend the Member for Derby South set in train earlier this year will be important for the future of the Rural Payments Agency when it reports at the end of this year. In the mean time, I know that this year's problems have caused real distress and I repeat the apology to farmers I have made before. I can assure the House that the Rural Payments Agency chief executive, with the support of the department, will be looking to take interim steps to aid the recovery process and improve the experience of farmers dealing with the agency to the maximum possible extent. I will keep the House informed as matters progress".
	My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, I declare an interest as an eligible farmer who, the noble Lord will be interested and pleased to hear, is fortunate to have received his full 2005 payment, for which I am immensely grateful.
	I thank the Minister for repeating this Statement today, the more so since I am well aware that he has a particularly busy and crowded day, and putting this in has not been easy for him. He also has my sympathy for the bed of nails on which he finds himself. That said, as the Minister acknowledged, the Statement is about a situation that should not exist. The best that can be said of it is that it has moved from intolerable to bad. That is the reality. It is not comfortable for anybody in the department, the Minister's colleagues or for all those involved in the agricultural industry, particularly those adversely affected by not having received the payments they expected months ago.
	I was at an agricultural show yesterday, where I spoke to bankers about these problems. Although they were immensely sympathetic and doing all they could to help affected farmers, they made clear that it was as difficult for them as for farmers who have not received their payments. A lot of work has been done by the banks and the agricultural industry to set up temporary loans arrangements to carry matters forward and keep farmers afloat. While on the subject of bankers, I say to the Minister with some gratitude that the prospect of interest payments for outstanding sums after 1 July is very welcome. I hope he will forgive me the rather acid comment that my understanding is that 1 per cent over LIBOR is generally less than a farmer could borrow at commercial rates from a bank. None the less, it is a very welcome move in the right direction.
	I also welcome the Minister's remarks on sugar payments funding. Sugar beet growers will be particularly grateful for that statement.
	What is the European Commission's attitude to this particular hiatus? The Statement says that we are moving towards the 30 June payments deadline. We still apparently have some £13.8 million outstanding. There is another week to go, so presumably that figure will go down. At 30 June it is possible, as I understand it, for the Commission to impose penalties for failure to pay. It would be interesting to know whether the Government can indicate yet what the likely cost to the Treasury will be of that.
	I welcome the extension, to 15 June, of the period in which 2006 applications for single farm payments can be made without penalty. That date has now passed. According to replies given in another place, it looked as though application numbers were dropping. Has the Minister any idea how many applications might have missed that deadline? I imagine that, based on past applications, he will be able to give that figure. More importantly, is he aware of any reason why that situation should have arisen? I always regarded filling in these application forms as about the best-value-for-money task I had on my farm in any year. Any farmer who does not take that view has his priorities seriously adrift, and I cannot believe there are any farmers like that in the country.
	I know the Minister is doing all he can to sort this system out, and I hope that he succeeds, as does the whole industry. Yet it would have been better if we did not have to be here at all.

Lord Livsey of Talgarth: My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on getting things moving but, as I am sure he knows, his inheritance in this matter is absolutely dire. This Statement proves it. The situation has, no doubt, improved since the end of March, but there is still a long way to go. We know that it is not the Minister's fault, but the operation of the RPA has been totally unsatisfactory—and that is putting it mildly.
	The Statement covers a number of important points. I am particularly concerned about the effect on England. From what I can see, of the approximately 10,500 eligible hill-farm claims 5,000 have been paid in full and a further 900 authorised for partial payments. Am I correct in extrapolating from this that approximately 4,600 hill farmers are still waiting for any payment at all? If that is the case, when will they receive the payment that they are due?
	I agree with the Opposition spokesman that one per cent plus interest rate is totally inadequate. A headline in the Farmers Guardian about two weeks ago said that payments were being conducted by hand. Is this still going on, or was that an inaccurate report? The Statement addresses the 2006 claims. What proportion of the 2006 claims have been made by the deadline? There were 120,000 claims made for 2005, which were submitted to Defra in spring 2006. Roughly how many have been received for 2006? I noted that Defra had actually put some quite effective advertisements in the agricultural press urging farmers to get their applications in on time. How successful has this campaign been?
	The Minister's department may have some idea about the number and nature of complaints made by members of the farming community to the Parliamentary Ombudsman. What is the scale of that, and is it being pursued? I realise that he cannot make a transparent statement on this, given that they have gone to the Parliamentary Ombudsman, but he may know the volume of complaints made.
	It will take considerable time to clear this up, even in the current payments year. Yet I am pleased that Defra has gone ahead with negotiating the possibility of partial payments in 2006. That is a realistic assessment. Also, the tone is radically different from the statements made in March, particularly the RPA's amazing claims on when it would settle the problem. We know now that that was absolute fiction, though we thought so at the time. At least now this measured Statement lays bare the height of the problems confronted by the Rural Payments Agency. I sincerely hope that, when the future of the RPA is examined and reported on, there will be radical improvements to how it operates. It is possible that some totally new organisation will do its job in the future.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I am grateful for the response from the noble Lords, Lord Dixon-Smith and Lord Livsey. I made absolutely clear that 2006 will be a difficult year, and the tone of the Statement indicates this, leaving aside what has happened in the past. I am interested in what has happened in the past from a technical viewpoint, but my main priority is the present and the future. That has been what David Miliband and I have concentrated on in the past few weeks. We will not be talking up 2006 because, as the Statement says, we are limited in what we can actually do. 2006 has already started and 2007 applications are only nine months away. We really must be careful about making fundamental changes to a system that has not delivered.
	To answer the specific questions, I am grateful for the welcome of the Statement on interest payments. There will never be enough done, but we do not know how much will be paid until 30 June, because we cannot measure them until then. Some days after that date we will know how much has been paid out. The Statement was made today for the reasons I explained. There were Defra Questions in the other place, but there was none on the single payment scheme. We wanted to update the House as soon as possible. I also welcome the response on the sugar payments. It was bad enough seeing what had happened, but major changes on sugar for 2006 had already been agreed. Paying them separately is an advantage to the sugar beet producers for this one year, because the money stays within the family.
	I will be more attuned to respond on the EU attitude to penalties after 30 June. There will be an opportunity to answer the question then because the House will still be sitting. We are moving heaven and earth to pay as much out as possible before then. I appreciate that the extension date of 15 June for applications for 2006 has already passed. The deadline was originally the middle of May, extended to 31 May. By 15 June we had received more than 4,000 applications which would have been subject to a penalty because they had missed the deadline of 31 May. We are grateful to the Commission for this, as some 4,000 farmers will now not be subject to the penalty. I was then asked whether any applications had come in since. Yes, the latest figure I had was some 60 plus, and they are still trickling in.
	I will use—with his permission, although it is in Hansard—the words of Farmer Dixon-Smith, that the best value-for-money job he ever did as a farmer was filling in the forms. Filling in forms means you get money. That is what I have tried to put across. It helps to sign the forms when you have filled them in. The number of forms we receive without a signature is frankly unbelievable, but it does happen. As I say, it is now a trickle so we do not expect many people to be subject to a penalty next year. I cannot be tied to exact figures, but we have received some 110,000 plus out of the 118,000 that were requested. That 110,000 includes the 4,000 that came in after 31 May but before 15 June.
	Of the 4,000 hill-farm payments that have not been made, priority is being given to making full or partial payments for the hill-farm allowance. The RPA set up a dedicated unit. That is the question I was asked, though I do not have the answer. The implication is that they cannot have the hill-farm allowance until the single payment is paid. That is one of the problems. Some of the 4,000 may have had a partial single payment but not the hill-farm allowance.
	Before I sit down later, having answered other questions, I will try to have a more specific answer. I do not know anything about any ombudsman's inquiry but, given the scale of the letters that I keep signing to Members of the other place I would not be at all surprised if there had been applications to the ombudsman on the grounds of maladministration. I know of no payments made by hand. I regret that I did not see the story in the Farmers Guardian; I missed that; it was not drawn to my attention.
	We are trying to use the system to make the payments. It is true that we have said that, if push comes to shove at the end of next week, we will do what we can, possibly including bypassing the system. We are very reluctant to do that because that in itself will create problems closing down the 2005 computer framework. Nevertheless, there are other ways to do that if we cannot get the payments out. I understand that there are two more payment windows before next Friday, so we will have a better view of the position by the middle of next week, but we have put in hand processes to try to maximise the payments to farmers.
	I cannot be certain about the date of the 2006 payment. The first time that anyone will get a date from me about 2006 payments is when I know that the first one has been made. Given what happened earlier this year, we will be very reluctant to make promises, because we will not be believed. Therefore, we will under-promise and over-deliver. Either way, I have already had a complaint from some stakeholders that we did not tell them that 841 partial payments were to be made last week—I think that they were to hill farmers. Until the buttons were pressed, we were not certain that they had gone through the system, so we were not going to say, "By the way, we expect to make those payments", because we could not be certain. As I said, there are two more payment windows before 30 June and I cannot be certain how many will be covered. I know estimates of what may be covered but they are not promises that I can share with the House.
	Finally, it is worth mentioning again that our top priority is those owed more than €1,000. Of course, there is a considerable number of people who have not had a penny whose claim will deliver less than €1,000—about 12,000 of them. They cannot be a priority. I know that it is important for some of them; £600 or €1000 is a lot of money if your total income is only five grand. I understand that, but they are not the top priority; the top priority is those owed more than that—the last 2,000-plus who have not had a bean and whose claim is more than that. Some sums owed are very substantial—into six figures, I understand. That is our top priority.

Lord Williamson of Horton: My Lords, I very much welcome the fact that, at last, the Minister has a grip on what is a very bad situation and the fact that there will be some interest payments, not only because of the money but because farmers will see that as a recognition that there is a real problem and that something practical is being done about it. I understand that the priority is to give money to people who have had nothing whatsoever, but payments over £1,000 will influence not just income but investment, purchase of stock, and so on. I understand that the Minister cannot say when every one will be paid, but are we talking about, say, three months or five months for payments that influence the running of the farm and investment, not just income? That is important for the longer-term future of some farms.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, first, it is not £1,000; it is €1,000, so we are talking about approximately £600. We have not stopped those payments, but the priority is those claiming more than €1,000. When the RPA staff are dealing with those payments and come up against queries because the system does not work, they do not then stop and twiddle their thumbs waiting for the next tranche of work to come through the computer, they then work on claims below €1,000. The fact is that they are not the priority; the priority is claims over that figure. That does not mean to say that the others are not being paid. We intend to get all the payments out as quickly as possible before or on 30 June and, if we miss any, as quickly as possible after 30 June. The initial priority for the workflow of the RPA staff must be those bigger claims.

Lord Biffen: My Lords, I have a minuscule interest to declare in respect of 30 acres of to-let grassland. I have watched this whole drama with bewilderment, certainly not with hostility. Can the Minister explain why so many continental countries have been able to resolve their agricultural claims in a much shorter period, whether he has studied their practices and whether they might be adopted by this country? Or are we landed with a computer program of such sophistication and ambition that we are likely to continue with these difficulties year after year?

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I certainly hope that the latter part of the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Biffen, is not true. The fact is that not every member of the EU has gone into the new system this year for 2005. I understand that less than half of the members have operated a new payments system decoupling from food and livestock production. There was a choice. We, as the UK, were leading reform of the CAP, so it was inevitable that we wanted to use the new system as soon as possible. England has not been dealt with in the same way as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, where payments worked faster and have probably—I do not know the full figures—met the payments deadline.
	I understand that Germany moved on this. It has experienced some difficulties, and colleagues in the RPA will, over the summer, be discussing with colleagues from Germany some aspects that they found that they did not expect. There will be lessons to be learnt from the EU, but other members of the EU will be learning from us simply because we have been in the vanguard of operating this payment system. In the long term, it will deliver more money to farmers. It collapses 11 different payment schemes and more money will be paid out; it is just that it has not been paid out by the promised dates in the first year.

Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I shall ask the Minister some elementary questions. I first declare an interest in that I have been involved in agriculture. We all greatly appreciate the position in which the Minister finds himself. There are one or two things that I do not understand at all. The first is that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have managed to pay their people; why have we not? Is it just that the computer has gone phut; is the system too complicated; or are the civil servants finding difficulty with it? Or is it that people have not sent in their applications? I think that the Minister said that there are not many of those. I just do not understand how we can have got into that position. If he could give us a brief reason, I would be grateful.
	When the Minister says that he is doing his best to get all the payments out by 30 June, what is the inhibiting factor? Is it that the machine does not say what is the amount to be paid or that the figures are not available? If they are available, what is likely to be unpaid by 30 June?
	British agriculture is facing its biggest crisis since the 1930s. It is a terrible thing that this system, which is so deeply complicated, should be imposed on British agriculture. Is there any way that the Minister or the European Union can make the system easier, because it seems a perfectly absurd thing to land on the industry?

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I am grateful for the noble Earl's questions. On his first question, the system that was adopted in England is not the same as that adopted in the devolved Administrations. Each was able to adopt the scheme slightly differently. England adopted a much more detailed, robust and forward-looking scheme. On paper, there is no doubt that it is the best way to go. The problem is how it has been applied in the first year. There are lessons to be learned from that. I have spent a year with responsibility for Northern Ireland. I did not deal with single payments because we were paying the money out from December. There were other issues there.
	The noble Earl also asked the valid question: what is stopping the payments on the last 2,300 of the 120,000 claims? Those are the large claims; there are obviously some small ones. One cannot be precise. There are still disputes about field boundaries and about more than one application for a field; in other words, two farmers claiming the same field. I am not making an excuse, but there are more than 200 probate cases in the system that will have to be removed because it takes a lot longer to deal with them. It is unfortunate, but it is a factor. I am told that, as the system currently operates, when the operator thinks the payment is ready and when it appears on the screen the snag that stopped it going out the first time has been dealt with. However, there might be another snag waiting down the line which will not be flagged up until the first one has been cleared, so you do not know it is there. Sometimes, given how the forms are filled in, a duplicate page might be mistakenly filled in or a whole host of things can happen at the last minute.
	We have paid out over 90 per cent of the money, with more than 82,000 full payments and a considerable number of partial payments. We are at the tail end of some complicated, awkward cases that have built up on top of the problems caused by the delays earlier in the year. One thing has fed off another. I cannot identify for the noble Earl one single problem to be fixed which would enable us to press the button and make all the other payments. If that were the case, I could say with confidence that we could make all the payments by next Friday, but I cannot.

Lord Willoughby de Broke: My Lords, the noble Lord's predecessor, the noble Lord, Lord Bach, repeatedly told us that staff in the Rural Payments Agency were working incredibly hard and for long hours to get the payments through. But according to newspaper reports, in the Newcastle office at least, staff seem to have been swinging naked from chandeliers and drinking champagne. Will he prevail upon the chief executive, Mr Cooper, to ensure that, fun-loving though these people may be, they get back to do the work they are paid for?

Lord Rooker: Yes, my Lords. The RPA has 900 staff, of whom probably only a handful have brought odium upon the others who are doing a decent job. They do work other than on the single payments, which account for only about 10 per cent of the workload. There is no evidence that any single payments have been delayed because of those unprofessional activities. Senior staff from the RPA's headquarters were dispatched to Newcastle to sort out the issue. That is all I can say about it at the moment, as an internal inquiry is going on.

The Earl of Selborne: My Lords, what has been the cost of this long, sad saga? Resolving the issue has clearly caused a hole in Defra's budget. The very welcome interest charges will be another cost, and there is always the possibility—is there not?—of infraction proceedings after 1 July. Has the Minister any idea what will be the total cost to Defra?

Lord Rooker: No, my Lords, I could only make wild guesses at the moment because the legal payment window was from last December to the end of June. We are still in the legal payment window. We have let down those who say they should have been paid earlier in the year, because we gave them a specific promise and did not pay them. But until the legal payment window ends on 30 June we will have no idea of the possible interest payments, how many big claims are left and the other complaints that, clearly, we will get. Making partial, top-up payments can be complicated, which is why we prefer to make full payments if possible.

Earl Ferrers: My Lords, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all produced schemes that worked, when ours did not. Is that Ministers' fault for choosing such an awkward scheme?

Lord Rooker: My Lords, that is a question about the past; we are a new team of Ministers. The Select Committee is carrying out an inquiry about what went on and is taking evidence from Ministers, former Ministers and civil servants. I do not know. I understand that the schemes in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland are not exactly the same as each other. The devolved Administrations had a degree of choice about the schemes. I am not in the game of indicating fault at the moment; I just do not have the evidence and I freely admit that I have not spent my time looking for it in the past five weeks. I have tried to concentrate on the present and the future rather than the past, as plenty of others are doing that.

Work/Life Balance

Debate resumed.

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Rooker for allowing us that short comfort break. It has given us a chance to reflect on the excellent maiden speech of my noble friend Lady Kingsmill, who, I see, is not in her place. That is not surprising; she is probably running down the Corridor right now. Actually I rather hope she is having a jolly good lunch. She set a standard in style and content which puts those of us who come after her rather on our mettle. I am very sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, has had her agony prolonged, but I can assure her that we are all looking forward just as much to hearing her speech shortly.
	I am very grateful to my noble friend Lady Gale for introducing this debate. I hope that she will not take it amiss, as she personally did not coin the phrase, if I start by saying that the expression "work/life balance" seems to set up a false dichotomy. It implies that work and life are different, perhaps even incompatible, but that is far from the truth. For many people, work is a vital source of strong social relationships, which often spill over into non-working time. Life away from the workplace, particularly family life, can and should be incorporated into how work is structured and how we bring to bear in our work practices the best of what we learn from our wider network of relationships. I certainly learnt a huge amount from my experience as a parent about managing people—and I do not mean that I advocate treating one's colleagues like children.
	However, I do not intend to question the value of this debate. In the week in which my noble friend Lord Layard and his team at LSE have published their work on the impact of depression and anxiety on individual lives and on the economy, it is especially pertinent that we should discuss the importance of developing working environments that do not contribute unduly to the stresses of modern life. Conflict between professional and personal priorities can too often be the source of such problems, as my noble friend Lady Kingsmill pointed out.
	My noble friend Lady Gale and the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, who is not in her place either, talked eloquently about what the Government have done since 1997 to promote humane and flexible employment practices. I join them in saluting those achievements, together with those of the increasing number of excellent employers, such as the one cited by the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, who have gone well beyond the legal requirements to develop good practice.
	I would like to say a bit about my own experience of trying to make the demands of personal and professional obligations work together, and to consider how things have changed. I shall also touch briefly on the difficulties faced by those who work to enhance other people's leisure, particularly performers. The world of work is very different today, particularly for women, from how it was when I started my career. There is a greater range of benefits; better maternity pay and leave; better paternity leave; parental leave, about which we have heard a great deal; and a far greater awareness of the needs of family life than there was 30 years ago. When I was having my children in the mid and late 1970s it was still not the norm for women to take maternity leave and return to work. Indeed, I was the first person with my then employers ever to do so. Fathers were not expected to take an active part in the daily routine of family life. Those who chose to do so, taking children to school, attending parents' meetings or filling in when childcare arrangements failed, were too often regarded with suspicion by their employers.
	We have made progress—although not yet enough, as we have heard—in changing attitudes and encouraging many more people, particularly women, into the labour market. But there are also pressures now that are both different from and more extreme than anything I experienced when I was first trying to make my way. We have heard about some of them already. I worked because I wanted to and I was able to pay for childcare from what I earned. But had I wished to stay at home with my children, my husband's income, which was not at that time large, would have been enough to support us. My children and their friends rarely have the luxury of making that choice, largely because the cost of keeping a roof over their heads, particularly in London and the south-east, is now so enormous that one income is most unlikely to be sufficient. That is especially so at the start of their careers or if they work in occupations that do not pay well or are insecure, of which there are many, such as large chunks of the voluntary and public sectors and the arts. This, in turn, contributes to the familiar phenomenon, already mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, of young people putting off having a family until much later in life—sometimes, for women, until it is too late, when they start to encounter fertility problems.
	The effort to get and keep enough work to pay the bills is still a real struggle for a lot of people, even those who have benefited from a good education and have excellent skills and experience. For them, the question of work/life balance is almost academic. Despite all the opportunities created by a buoyant economy and enlightened legislation, I do not envy today's young men and women the challenges they face. I wonder whether we have given them some pretty mixed messages. I do not lay this charge entirely—or even mainly—at the Government's door, but I would ask the Minister to consider, with his colleagues in other departments, what more can be done to help those who want to start families to do so at the best time, and without facing frightening financial consequences.
	Finally, I would like to remind your Lordships of those who work while others are at leisure, and how difficult it is for some of them to benefit from the flexible working practices we have heard about. They include, for instance, nearly everybody in the entertainment industry, especially those involved in live performances in theatres, concert halls and opera houses. In the main, they rehearse during the day and perform in the evening, sometimes six days a week. Although members of Equity, BECTU and the Musicians' Union mainly now work under far more enlightened contractual arrangements than used to be the case, they still must observe the disciplines of a profession in which the curtain goes up when it goes up. They cannot ask to do their work at another time or at home and, frequently, they cannot take advantage of, for example, parental leave or other forms of compassionate leave, because their absence would often be too disruptive.
	Increasingly, performers are also being asked to work on Sundays. From the point of view of potential audiences it is easy to see why. Despite our 24 hours a day, seven days a week world, Sunday is still not a working day for most people. For those with families it may be the only day when everyone can be together, so it makes sense for entertainment of all kinds to be available. In a recent letter to the Society of London Theatre, Christine Payne, general secretary of Equity, points out that performers and stage managers have families too. Sunday is an important day for them, just as it is for the rest of us. We should bear in mind that our freedom to enjoy our own balanced lives may sometimes be bought at the expense of unbalancing someone else's.
	I suspect that most of us have spent periods of our lives ricocheting between obligation to our families, our work and ourselves, cross and exhausted, wondering where it all went wrong. While even the most benign government cannot entirely free us from these conflicts, this one has certainly done a lot to help. We have come a long way in a generation; we must make sure that we protect what we have gained.

Baroness Thomas of Winchester: My Lords, as I rise to speak for the first time in your Lordships' House, I must first crave your Lordships' indulgence, not only for what I shall say, but for my slowness, I fear, in rising to my feet. This is due not to any reluctance to join in the debate but is the result of rather a lot of dystrophic muscles. Before turning to the subject of the debate, I should like to thank noble Lords on both sides of the House for the warmth of their welcome, which has been quite overwhelming. I should also like to pay tribute to the staff of the House, for their kind and cheerful help not just over the past few weeks but over the past 29 years. Working as I have in my party's Whips' Office since 1977, I have grown into middle age—and beyond—with many members of staff, particularly the senior Clerks. The House is indeed lucky to have such wise and knowledgeable people to serve it. As my mobility has decreased, my problems have been minimised by the help and care I have received from staff and Peers alike, particularly from all my Chief Whips and the staff in my party's Whips' Office, who have given me quite magnificent support, both physically and metaphorically.
	This brings me, very appropriately, to the subject of today's debate: the importance of work/life balance. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, on securing this debate. I also add my congratulations to my fellow maiden speaker, the noble Baroness, Lady Kingsmill, on her excellent speech. The term "work/life balance" is relatively new. The very fact that it has been invented surely means that for many employees work and the rest of life are not in balance. There is a complex range of reasons for this, two of which are that more and more women with caring responsibilities are now able to enter the world of work, with all the benefits—and, undoubtedly, some down sides—that that entails; and a lot of those in senior management positions—men as well as women—want to re-evaluate their lifestyles long before retirement. In passing, I note that all political parties are now addressing the issue of what it takes to have a contented life, or what some call more idealistically "the pursuit of happiness". They are not just focusing on the importance of personal wealth or taxes.
	Looking back over my working life of some 43 years, in the first 10 years or so I would think nothing of being out every evening, singing in choirs, socialising with friends, doing an evening class in watercolours, or perhaps playing tennis. Any stress that had built up during the day was quickly dissipated after work, and any particularly difficult problem might be talked over with friends. Speaking of stress, I see that the recent survey conducted by the Work Life Balance Centre found that 56.8 per cent of respondents felt their workloads occasionally to be out of control. I could certainly identify with that finding when I was an election agent for my noble friend Lord Livsey of Talgarth on more than one occasion.
	In many ways I was lucky. Others now start their working lives in a new culture, where staying late is the norm, as the right reverend Prelate and others have pointed out; there is ever more bureaucracy in terms of management reports and evaluations to be written; there is no administrative backup; and many weekends are spent catching up with work. The rise of new technology must not be seen as a curse, but it sometimes seems that way when laptops are taken on holiday and e-mails checked in the middle of the night, so that employees, however senior, quite literally never switch off.
	The main group of people who never switch off are, of course, full-time carers, to whom the term "work/ life balance" can sound like a cruel joke, particularly those who cannot afford private respite care. I look forward to a time when far more support is available to those in that position. Having said that, the overall picture for those seeking a more satisfactory work/life balance has definitely changed for the better, particularly with the increase in flexible working. From 1998 to 2004 the percentage of non-managerial employees switching from full-time to part-time hours increased by almost 20 per cent. Perhaps the most staggering increase has been in paid paternity or discretionary leave for fathers, which has more than doubled in the same period. Here, it must be remembered, flexible working arrangements, not surprisingly, are more prevalent in the public than the private sector.
	I have two more areas of particular concern. The first is that daughters—and they usually are daughters—are having to keep an ever more watchful eye on elderly parents, or parents-in-law, who are often now able to live into very old age in their own homes. This is a problem that can only increase, and it will have to be taken more into account by employers. However good any care arrangements are, they will inevitable break down from time to time, and a family member will have to leave work to go to the rescue. Who will take these frail but independent people to the opticians or to the hospital for appointments? This family member, as I have already suggested, is more likely than not to be a woman, even if the dependent in question is not related to her. I hope that this situation can be closely monitored to see that no employees are being penalised by their employers for taking time off to care for elderly relatives. The savings to the state if these people are able to stay in their own homes must be considerable. I note that there is evidence to show that employees are nowadays able to be more honest about this kind of absence from work.
	My second area of concern is for those of us without children. Employers have as much of a duty of care to those without children as to those with children and any request for flexible working by single, childless people should be looked at sympathetically. These are the people who often have to work extra hours to cover for those with childcare duties, and there is a danger that employers will expect workers with no dependants to work long hours as a matter of course. I have a particular worry for young professionals at the start of their working lives who are in danger of being exploited rather than cherished by their employers. We need these keen young people not to become resentful at work, but to have enough energy and enthusiasm at the end of the day to enhance society, and I hope that our choirs, drama groups and amateur orchestras of the future will not wither on the vine because young people are working too hard to take part in these activities, which are our country's cultural lifeblood.
	I end with a personal plea, and that is to be treated not as an old hand in your Lordships' House, but as the novice in this Chamber that I really am.

Lord Haskel: My Lords, it is my pleasure and privilege to congratulate the noble Baroness on behalf of the whole House and to welcome her maiden speech. To many of us, the noble Baroness seems strangely familiar. We had all sort of seen her somewhere before. As she explained, she has been behind the scenes in your Lordships' House for almost 30 years. In that time she was assistant and then head of the Liberal and Liberal Democrat Whips' Office. Rumour has it that she was responsible for much of the iron discipline imposed on Liberal Democrat Peers during that time: they are obviously all here today. However, it is clear that she knows where power and influence lies because her supporters were both former Liberal Democrat Chief Whips.
	From her remarks, the noble Baroness has her own work/life balance under control, but it is a private matter. When the list of recent Peers was published, the Daily Telegraph reported that she was "unavailable for comment". How very wise. However, I have managed to learn that before coming to your Lordships' House, the noble Baroness was involved with Winchester Cathedral and the choir school, and that music and painting play a big part in her life. She is chair of the Liberal Summer School and vice-president of the Lloyd-George Society. I think I can speak on behalf of the whole House when I say that we are delighted that she has, as it were, moved from the back of the House to the front of the House, and that we certainly look forward to her participation in our work and benefiting from her long experience here.
	This debate is about work and family life. My noble friend Lady Gale knows all about it because she is a working great-grandmother, and there are not many of those around. So I congratulate her on moving this debate and on her opening remarks. She will remember, as I do, that during our working lives three great promises have been made about the relationship between work and family life. We were brought up to believe in the promise of the work ethic. With automation there came the promise that humans would be replaced by machines and our problem would be how to fill in our leisure time. The noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, commented on that. With information technology came the promise that we would all work from home and have a portfolio of jobs. These promises have one thing in common: they were all wrong. They were wrong because they approached the relationship between work and family from one aspect only, either work or family, as if they were opposites. We now know that they are closely related. As my new noble friend Lady Kingsmill and my noble friend Lady McIntosh, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, have explained, work and family are more closely related than ever—so much so that there is a danger of the issue becoming reduced to a matter of style. We have to look carefully to see exactly what is involved in the work/life balance.
	When most of us started work, it was a matter of regular factory hours. Then along came globalisation, and now 75 per cent of us work in the service sector. It is work that may be less rigid, but is certainly more stressed. It is work which often means irregular and longer hours and, from the remarks of the right reverend Prelate, obviously working in the Church is well and truly in the service sector. For some in the knowledge-intensive sector it means better pay, but for the less skilled it means less well-paid work. All this has tended to make work less socially and family friendly, and we retain some of our old cultural attitudes towards work. As the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, told us, part-time work is still not on completely the same statutory basis as full-time work, and it is still assumed to be inferior to full-time work. This means that many part-time workers are working below their full potential. The demands of multi-tasking, often necessary to make us more competitive, also add to the stress. And of course with more women at work than ever, they too are subject to these pressures and stresses.
	It is the special pressures on women, to which my noble friend Lady Gale referred, that influence the other aspect of the relationship of the work/life balance: life, or rather, family life. It was recently announced that the average price of a semi-detached house in London is now over a quarter of a million pounds. I do not want to go into the financial details but, as my noble friend Lady McIntosh explained, it requires two incomes for a family to pay the mortgage. The same applies in all our major cities and in much of the countryside, and the situation is not going to change for a long time. To relieve the pressure, parents generally look to society to support and validate—I repeat, to validate—their decisions because we know that parenting as well as education is critical to a child's future.
	Governments have tried to solve this dilemma by providing childcare services, child and maternity benefits, tax credits, social housing, the Sure Start programme and early education as well as legislating for equal opportunities for all. From October we will have age-equality regulations. All this helps, but in reality I think that each one of us has to find our own compromise or balance. Most families are now working out this balance for themselves. More than ever, men and women are sharing the task of parenting, perhaps not as much as some would like, but it is moving in the right direction, and quickly. It was announced this week that most men now take two weeks' paid leave on the birth of a child. Paid maternity leave is mandatory and is gradually being increased. As my noble friend Lady Gale told us, since 2002 there has been a right for some to request flexible working, and the number of fathers taking up that right has increased threefold. The Work and Families Act looks at this in more detail and perhaps the next step will be to extend the right to carers. There has also been a huge increase in childcare places, not least in those provided by employers—and it is employers who are crucial to the matter of balance.
	Good businesses are rarely poor employers because poor employers rarely retain good people. They help to achieve a balance by being flexible over working hours down to each individual, helping with childcare and indeed offering options for people to take unpaid leave. My noble friend Lady Gale gave us a very good example of that. Employers achieve all this mostly without complaining or, most important, apportioning blame if things go wrong.
	I think that this has taken the Tories by surprise. They forecast that this kind of family-friendly management would make companies less competitive and force them out of business, and that the market would put a stop to it. Well, it has not. The reason is the same faulty understanding of markets that, in recent years, has proved the Tories wrong time and again. Their ideological view of a single, merciless market does not exist. Businesses operate in several markets, each one with its own careful framework which has been shaped by society. And if society has decided that family and work are becoming tightly interconnected, then if companies want to be successful they will come to operate within these market rules—rules which call on companies to improve the quality of people's lives.
	The Leader of the Opposition recently took businesses to task for being uncaring. Well, they seem to care about work/life balance, otherwise they will go out of business. When the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, sums up, will she explain this inconsistency?
	The modern knowledge economy is where most of us work, and it is blind to age and gender. Things are confused and, yes, there are contradictions. Social change is like that—it is untidy—but a trend emerges. I hope that the Minister will assure me that the Government recognise this and will encourage and reward the integration of work and family life, but will do so gently, with care and a lightness of touch. We should remember that we are dealing with individuals and their important relationships. Much must be left to them. In social matters of this kind, heavy-handed interference can destroy the object that the Government are trying to help. I hope that the Minister will agree with that.

Baroness Prosser: My Lords, I join others in congratulating the noble Baronesses, Lady Kingsmill and Lady Thomas of Winchester, on their interesting and thoughtful maiden speeches. I also join others in thanking my noble friend Lady Gale for initiating today's debate.
	Some noble Lords may be aware that I recently chaired the Women and Work Commission, whose report was launched by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Its recommendations have been supported in a number of ways, including by the establishment of a five-person implementation team in the new Department for Communities and Local Government, by the allocation of £40 million to be spent over two years on upskilling and retraining schemes for women in certain categories, and by the Prime Minister's exhortation to each Secretary of State with responsibility for issues covered in the report.
	The Women and Work Commission was set up to identify the continuing causes of the gender pay gap and to make recommendations for closing it. The single point that I would make about its report is that there is no single answer. The reasons behind the pay gap are many and various, and include educational choices, job segregation—both internal and by sector—lack of quality part-time employment and lack of job flexibility.
	While it is true that many women would welcome better and more varied employment opportunities and the chance for an improved income, very many women are either unwilling or unable, because of other responsibilities or constraints, to engage in paid employment that is rigidly organised. Although the need—or desire—for a work/life balance impacts rather more sharply on women, we now find that increasing numbers of men are recognising that a more rounded life can be a more satisfactory and fruitful one.
	As an aside, I shall quote the warm words of David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party. At the weekend, he told the Sunday Times:
	"On Fathers' Day we should remember the simple truth that a successful dad spends time with his children".
	Yet Mr Cameron voted against the introduction of two weeks' paid paternity leave, the extension of maternity leave to 26 weeks, the right to request flexible working hours, and increased maternity pay. Warm words butter no parsnips, Mr Cameron.
	I shall now explain why I think a work/life balance is a good thing and, indeed, a necessary development for the employee, the employer and the economy as a whole. By 2010, only 20 per cent of the available workforce will be white, male and under 45. By 2020, the number of persons in the 16 to 49 age group will have reduced by approximately 4 per cent and the 50-plus age group will be the only group showing real growth. By 2012, 2 million extra jobs will have been created, two-thirds of which will be filled by women. More important, over the same period there will be a 12 million job churn, and so, given the changing demographics, it will be essential for educational institutions, Government and employers to recognise that more women and other under-represented groups must be equipped to take advantage of these opportunities.
	Many employers are already aware of the need to get on the front foot in the competition for talent. They have learnt that understanding the pressures on employees' lives and accommodating them by providing various flexible work options is good for business in a number of ways. Flexible work packages enable employers to attract and retain a wider range of talent. They reduce turnover and absenteeism and can increase both productivity and morale. Flexible working is not just about part-time employment. Indeed, most part-time employment is just as rigid as full-time employment—it is just shorter. Flexible work packages can include varying shift patterns, annual hours contracts, core hours, home working, term-time working and job sharing.
	Work/life balance is important to people for different reasons at different stages in their lives. Younger workers may want more time for social activities, extra learning or training, or extra vacations. Parents may have childcare or elder care issues. Older workers may want time for pre-retirement planning or for healthcare or, indeed, they may want extra hours to help to pay children's student fees. Needs vary and so must solutions.
	Finally, if none of the above is sufficiently persuasive, let me advise noble Lords of one of the findings of the Women and Work Commission. Economists working with the commission estimated that removing barriers to women working in occupations traditionally done by men and increasing women's participation in the labour market could be worth between £15 billion and £23 billion to our economy or 1.3 per cent to 2 per cent of GDP. That is a prize worth having in anyone's book. Work/life balance can provide for a healthier and wealthier society as well as, of course—from the point of view of women workers—a fairer society.

Lord Giddens: My Lords, I, too, begin by thanking my noble friend Lady Gale for initiating this debate. I also join others in thanking our two maiden speakers for their impressive speeches. We are happy to welcome them here; they are clearly important additions to your Lordships' House. I sympathise with what the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, said about the imbalanced nature of this debate. He suggested that the Conservatives have somehow resolved the work/life balance. How they have done so, I am not sure. Whether they are all in their offices working feverishly, or whether they are at Ascot, as the noble Lord suggested, we do not know. I feel that in one respect, but one respect only, I am more distinguished than the noble Lord: in my short time in the House, I have spoken in one debate in which I was the only man speaking on either side of the House. That was a debate about women and I thought that they should apply the 50:50 rule in that debate in reverse.
	I have some sympathy with those who are a bit wary about the notion of work/life balance, I suppose partly because I find it hard to get a balance in my own life but, for a more serious reason, because it suggests that paid work is not a part of life. However, all sociological research shows that work is a central life value and that attitudes to work are changing pretty dramatically in modern societies.
	Work is important to people for three main reasons. First, it obviously provides a source of income. One of the main changes is that far more people are dependent on two incomes than used to be the case. If you are in a two-income family, your chance of being in poverty is virtually nil in the current society, for example. Secondly, work provides stability and structure for people. You have only to look at studies of the unemployed to see how difficult it is to deal with time and find a structure for your day if you do not have work as a central part of your life. That, of course, includes domestic work as well as paid work. Thirdly, people value work because of the friendships and relationships they form. Speaking in your Lordships' House is work in a way, I suppose, and I certainly value the friendships that I have made here. I used to be the head of the London School of Economics. According to modern technology, students should all be able to work at home because you can access any source you need—any book or article—on the internet. However, the most popular place in the LSE was the library, because of the sociability that it offered.
	There have been interesting changes in people's attitude to work and those have to be part of this debate. I wrote down a bit of survey material. Only 36 per cent of women in 2006 thought that they should put children ahead of having a career. A generation ago, that would be reversed; the figure was about 65 per cent. Only 32 per cent of men in 2006 thought that women should put children before work. That is also a reversal of what was true 30 years ago. Over 60 per cent of both men and women agree that it is more important to live comfortably than to have children. I cannot overstress what a major change in social attitudes that represents; it is the sort of change discussed by my noble friend Lord Haskel and others. We live in a very different economy from that of the past; it is really a knowledge-service economy, not just a knowledge economy. Over 80 per cent of the population work in services or knowledge-based occupations. Thirty years ago, more than 40 per cent of people worked in manufacture, and another 6 or 7 per cent worked in agriculture.
	That is a terrific transformation in the nature of our society. It affects almost everything; it clearly affects the household. A generation ago, men and women experienced their lives as fate. If you were a woman, you more or less knew what your fate was—a life of domesticity. Many women worked until they had children, but most then gave up work or had inferior jobs. If you were a man, you were a breadwinner; that was your role in life. Many people who now say that fathers do not play much role in the family should look at the material on the 1950s, the period of the so-called absent father. Because working hours were so long, a high proportion of fathers rarely saw their children. Much of the stuff said about the traditional family is nonsense. It is good to hear David Cameron recognise the significance of changes in the structure of work and the family, and recognise the fact that you cannot apply the sorts of formulae that essentially depend on an idealised version of the traditional family to the world in which we now live.
	As other noble Lords have said, it is plain that flexibility has to be the key to reorganising the relationship between work and the family. There are many contentious areas here. One reason is that flexibility is a highly contested concept. Employers and employees interpret it differently and it is a focus of struggle in many countries. A joke is told about a person who goes into civil service offices—I shall not mention in which country—where he finds a yellow line painted down the floor. He says, "What's that for?" He is told, "It's to stop the people coming into work late bumping into the people leaving work early". That is how employers tend to see flexibility. In spite of what my noble friend Lord Haskel said, for employers flexibility tends to mean "hire and fire", temporary contracts, keeping workers in insecure conditions, expecting workers to work night shifts, and so on.
	From the employee's side, flexibility tends to mean all the things discussed in this debate. There are 100 forms of flexibility—not just part-time work, but flexitime, job sharing, home working, and many others, including flexibility across the career cycle. We have to learn to think across the career cycle—the life course—and not just in terms of what is happening at any particular time. Research shows that employers are becoming more sympathetic to the employee's definition of flexibility; they are becoming Haskelites in the sense that some at least accept that increased flexibility generates higher productivity and so is important to economic success. However, so far data show that employers are more sympathetic about flexibility when it applies to women, and in the public sector than the private sector, although these things are certainly changing.
	A further important backdrop to this is that the old story about women applies less and less, as was recognised in some of the speeches. The idea that women live in a separate employment ghetto, are denied career opportunities and all do a double shift is becoming less and less true, which is one of the most interesting changes in our society. First, if you look at recent material, you see that women interrupt employment far less than once was the case when they have children. Recent studies in the EU countries show that the penalty of having a child in terms of career success has become radically reduced over the past 10 to 15 years, and in some professions, in particular the creative professions, has more or less ceased to exist.
	Secondly, women's share of household income is increasing dramatically in all industrial countries. It is approaching parity in Denmark, where women earn about 42 per cent of total household income. In this country, according to the latest statistics that I could find, it is about 31 per cent but increasing rapidly. That is an important structural backdrop in persuading men to take on more domestic responsibilities, which they are doing, especially in the Scandinavian countries.
	Thirdly—perhaps the Minister will comment on this—we have to watch the issue of women exploiting other women. The flexibility of some professional women is purchased at the expense of poorer women who work for them. Many of the poorer women who do the domestic chores and work as childcarers are poorly paid and sometimes outside the formal labour market. They may have none of the contractual conditions that the professional woman has, which is clearly a contradiction.
	Finally, I must accept what the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, said about there being one group of people whom we want to work more—older people. I am against the whole idea of retirement and pensions; pensions simply should be an investment mechanism for the future against the background of a flexible life course. Again if you look at the Scandinavian countries, you see terrific changes. They had 30 per cent of people over 68 in work 10 years ago, but now over 60 per cent of those men and women are in work. They did that through the kind of incentives that the noble Lord suggested.

Baroness Howells of St Davids: My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Baronesses, Lady Kingsmill and Lady Thomas, on their maiden speeches. I am sure we all agree that they have given us much food for thought. I also congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, on her foresight in raising this debate. It got me to think about how the black British were managing the work/life balance when statistics show that in that group there are a huge proportion of female-headed households with more than three children.
	In the United Kingdom we have advanced beyond the level of aggressive feminism through the traditions of democracy and equal opportunities. Nevertheless, there is still a need to explode some of the myths about the role of women in society. This society has defined the role of men and women in a certain way, sometimes forgetting that there are many single-headed households. Single mothers—and, in some cases, single fathers—find themselves in the role of breadwinner as well as nurturer of their family. How they get into that position has no place in this presentation. What matters is how they manage the breadwinning as well as keeping the family together. That means finding the proper balance between domestic chores, working responsibilities and other responsibilities outside the home. The most notable result is that siblings grow up in the black community sooner than those in the white community. They are required at an early age to take responsibility for younger siblings. They share household tasks. A greater use of grandparents and relatives is also required if single women are to take their place in the workplace.
	Policy-makers and employers have taken some strides to change the way we in the United Kingdom live and work. This Government can take much credit for employment changes that allow a better work/life balance. Legislation has changed employment laws to reflect the benefits of more flexible working patterns and provide more generous time off for family reasons. Some of these changes have been referred to by other speakers, so I will confine myself to the ones that I understand benefit the single parent.
	The Government have ended discrimination against part-time workers and given all workers new rights to join a trade union. They can go further by addressing the need for quality part-time work, as requested by the Women and Work Commission and referred to earlier. The protection of the new national minimum wage, paid maternity leave and family rights give mothers real choices. Then there are the Sure Start programmes; the right to take time off when a child is ill; the right to three months' parental leave when the mother has been in work for one year; flexible working rights for parents of children under six and disabled children under 18; and the increase in child benefit. All of those have been part of the Government's plan to tackle child poverty, with an additional £7 billion in children's financial support. Greater attention is now paid to education and there is the right to healthcare at the point of need. Those are important assets for the single mother.
	Government initiatives are seen as aids to managing the work/life balance. Nevertheless, there are particular difficulties for women who are highly educated and wish to put their skills to good use. The majority of such women find that climbing the corporate ladder means that work dominates and family life suffers. To compete, they are forced to work longer hours than they should. Heavy workloads and the long-hours culture still pervade in many organisations. Stress levels are having negative health effects, in terms of both the physical effects—such as headaches, exhaustion and depression—and unhealthy lifestyles; lack of exercise, overeating and increased alcohol consumption. What actions are the Government taking to encourage employers to meet the Health and Safety Executive's management standards for stress?
	There are large numbers of outstanding single parents who make a success of their careers, shoulder the burden of family life, organise that family life and take on the responsibility not only of nurturing their families but ensuring that their own parents are well looked after. A great tribute ought to be paid to such women, who achieve so much in and for society, as opposed to the men, who essentially neglect the domestic concerns of family life and go on their merry way to create other single families.
	There are some 40 per cent of people on incapacity benefit who are unable to work because of mental illness, which is very prevalent among British Caribbean men and women. The noble Lord, Lord Layard, who has already been mentioned in the debate, estimates in his report published this week that the cost of depression to the public purse is around £7 billion. The report suggests that an expenditure of only £600 million on counselling would assist up to half the number of such people to recover from their illness and enable them to rejoin the work market. What steps do the Government intend to take to implement the seven-year plan contained in the noble Lord's report?

Lord Sawyer: My Lords, I, too, begin by congratulating the noble Baronesses, Lady Kingsmill and Lady Thomas, on their excellent maiden speeches. I hope we will hear from them frequently; not too frequently, as they have to get their work/life balance right—we do not want them spending too much time here—but, based on today's contributions, it would be good to listen to them more often.
	I also thank my noble friend Lady Gale for initiating this debate. It is a very important subject, at the centre of all our lives in many different ways, and it gives us an opportunity to congratulate the Government on their contribution, which we should all promote, as my noble friend Lady Howell did in her speech.
	I want to address the issue on a slightly different plane. We could get more from life if we looked more closely at the quality of work, and that is what I shall do. Along with my noble friend Lord Giddens I am slightly uncomfortable with the term "work/life balance". Does that mean "life good, work bad"? Or is work the opposite of life? I do not know. I should like to think that life and work can complement and reinforce each other, and create a holistic way for people to enjoy their existence. That is what I would be looking for.
	There was a time when work and life were more of a whole. In the old agricultural economies, for example, farm and home were integrated. Old people, children, fathers and mothers worked together in that community. Families worked and played together in craftsmen's houses and workshops. Holidays were often shared celebrations and experiences, not such private occasions as they are now. Children and old people were actually welcome around the world of work, not separated from it as they often are now. No doubt some of these experiences were good, while others were not so good. We cannot return to a kind of medieval utopia. However, the principle of building a more integrated life that provides a rounded experience is well worth exploring.
	I suppose it was the industrial revolution and the rise of capitalism some 300 years ago that brought in the free market for labour and produced the wage slave, thus separating life from work. For millions work became repugnant, repetitive and often dangerous; it was to be avoided if at all possible. That has been the case for many in my lifetime and still is for many today. It certainly was when I was a young fellow. John Goldthorpe wrote a famous study on car workers in Luton in 1968, which my noble friends from the Transport and General Workers Union will know much about. He found that work was a means to an end; a temporary surrender of liberty, no less, just for material reward. Even among the managerial and white-collar classes, there are many who find work unpleasant, stressful, combative, competitive arenas where human beings strive aggressively for money and status. It used to be called the rat race.
	Does it have to be like this? Can work and life be more unified? Can work take place at home and can home take place at work? Can we bring the children to work one day and take work home the next? Of course we can. I was going to say that many do. I am not so sure that it is many but certainly some do so. Perhaps the privileged elite, probably many who sit on these Benches, have or have had such opportunities. That may make us think that they are more widespread than they are. The very best employers put those practices into place. They bring this wholeness and provide a real quality of life for the people they employ. But they are few and far between. Is it 5 per cent? The answer is probably yes. Yet a competitive economy depends on that. We are in the second industrial revolution but often our work practices are nothing more than modifications of those that we used in the first industrial revolution. Wage slaves benefiting from a labour market reform fought for by the unions and implemented by a Labour Government is about as good as it gets for most people. But that is not good enough.
	We need a completely new way of seeing people and conceiving work. Capital is not the prime resource in the second industrial revolution: it is people. Their empowerment, development and commitment, which employers need to garner, will be the secret of success. In the highly evolved workplace, which might as easily be found at home as elsewhere, people will and do now design, construct and create work which will give them a proper life balance and employers do and will pay them to do so. It will be a world where, increasingly, there is a seamless transition between training, development and achieving goals and meeting targets, all creating satisfaction for people who are doing it but also creating more satisfaction for the people whom they are serving—customers, patients, clients or whoever they may be.
	Many features of the old world of work have gone already but some remain. I refer to having to clock in, having to phone in if you are not available for work, and having strict rules and regulations. While many of those have already gone, many still need to go. They will move on as people cease being factors of production and start to be trusted colleagues—people who take more personal responsibility for how their days and weeks are organised and how their work and life are balanced.
	There will still be an important role for the Government in championing and promoting this change, not least among their own managers and employers who, sadly, are woefully far behind on such thinking and experience. The Government will also have a role in setting standards and regulating work and underpinning the changes that need to take place.
	Some noble Lords might have seen or indeed experienced what I describe. I am pleased to say that I have. I have worked in places where it has been a joy to work, where employers have managed to treat employees in a dignified and fair way. It can work. It is not just for the white-collar brain worker elite. It can also work for people who do manual, simple, repetitive jobs. In my experience many of those who create work talk about it but still care more about profits than people. That is increasingly deeply mistaken. What I describe is certainly not Utopian. It is probably the only route to a successful economy and social progress and to creating a truly balanced life.

Baroness Pitkeathley: My Lords, the most observant among your Lordships will note that I am doing a bit of balancing today. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Haskel for allowing me to balance my duties on the Woolsack with my great wish to speak in the debate. I am delighted that my noble friend Lady Gale has given your Lordships' House the opportunity to debate again this important issue and to enable us to hear two such outstanding maiden speeches. I am especially delighted that we are having this debate at a civilised and family-friendly time of day. I remember only too well one occasion—I think that it was in 1999—when we began a debate on family-friendly working practices at 10.30 in the evening and ended it after midnight.
	The House has moved on since then and recognition of work life/balance, its importance and the needs of both employers and employees, has moved on also. Knowing how many of the speakers today do as I do and balance several jobs with a deep commitment to constant attendance at your Lordships' House, the words "pots" and "kettles" spring to mind. I am also aware of the personal experience which people have shared in the debate. Many of the women have looked back to a time when work/life balance was simply not an issue on the agenda. Someone asked me recently how I managed to be so efficient when I was chairing a meeting in bringing the meeting to a close on time. The reason is that when I was a single parent with two children it was simply unacceptable to say, "I have to finish this meeting to fetch my children". So I learnt how to finish meetings in very good time.
	We are more aware that getting the right balance in our lives—how much time we spend at work and how much with our families and at leisure—is very important to individuals and to society in terms of the strength and effectiveness of family bonds which set and maintain moral boundaries. Those are significant not simply in how we operate in family settings but how society itself operates. We have made progress in recognising that, but at the same time we know that the advent of increasingly sophisticated IT means that it is harder to get away from work responsibilities and demands. I cannot be the only Member of your Lordships' House who sighs for the days when one received a letter in the post and if a reply was given in a week that was considered a quick turnaround. Then we got faxes and the turnaround time expectation went down rapidly; and now with everything on e-mail you are expected to respond instantly when someone says, "I will ping that over to you". If you have broadband and a Blackberry, it will not much matter whether it is the weekend or 7 am.
	Demands are 24/7 and companies clearly need a workforce which can respond to those needs. But people have needs too: to spend more time with the children and grandchildren; and a flexible employment pattern that helps them to deal with the other demands on their time. Many families rely on two incomes while one-parent families are on the rise. Flexibility in all types and levels of jobs would help break a vicious circle in which men with families work even longer hours to make up for the fact that women in part-time work are paid so badly. There is widespread agreement that more flexible patterns of work would benefit everyone but we have a long way to go in implementing those universally. Nowhere is this more apparent than as regards those who care for elderly, sick or disabled relatives. I am grateful for the number of times carers have been mentioned in the debate.
	It is often forgotten that 3 million of the 6 million people who provide most of the health and social care in our nation are also trying to juggle paid work responsibilities. They often say that it is like having two jobs, one paid and one unpaid. They often feel that they are unable to disclose their caring responsibilities at work for fear that they may be seen by their employers as less able to do their paid job. But with the right support they can be helped to do both. I know that employers are often very fearful of this. One described it as not wanting to open the floodgates of demand by saying to carers, "Can I be flexible?" But every piece of research demonstrates that that is not what happens. Very small changes in working practice can make a huge difference to carers' lives. I always remember the carer who said to me that simply being allowed to park her car in the executives' car park, which was much nearer her place of work, enabled her to get home at lunch time so that she could see to her husband who had Parkinson's disease and then come back to work. Very small things like that can make a difference.
	I must acknowledge the huge progress that has been made, and the success of Carers UK in putting this caring issue on the social and political agenda not only in this country but throughout Europe—indeed, throughout the world—is greatly to be admired. This Government brought in a national carers strategy which they are now in the process of reviewing and I know that enabling carers to combine paid work with caring will be given a high priority. We have three separate Acts of Parliament specifically aimed at carers. The most recent of these acknowledges the carer's right to leisure time and access to education—in other words, to an ordinary life, which is what carers say they want. The right to time off, to respite, is now enshrined in legislation and money has been allocated to local authorities to provide this. The Work and Families Bill, which has been mentioned many times, gives, as we have heard, a right to request flexible working arrangements because of caring responsibilities. This is very much to be welcomed and I commend the good offices of my noble friend the Minister in this regard. In addition, the changes to pension policy which have already taken place and which are in the pipeline acknowledge the role of carers and the need to support them and to give them the chance to ensure that caring over a long period does not always result in poverty.
	All these developments are greatly increasing the confidence of carers to speak up about their needs in the workplace and to put pressure on employers and service providers to recognise their needs. But I am afraid there are still too many service providers whose packages of care are predicated on the carer giving up paid work rather than enabling them to continue in work, even part-time, by providing services which fit their needs not those of the provider. Again, those can be quite small changes such as organising the daycare that is provided around the shift pattern for the carer rather than expecting the carer to fit their working pattern into the daycare which is available.
	Carers' assessments, which are required by law thanks to the new legislation, should be the means of addressing this and should never assume that the carer's first action will be to retire from paid work. But employers need to be further encouraged, for example by surveying the number of carers in their workforce, providing adequate information for them, and perhaps by setting up workplace carers groups and making sure that they have proper carers policies which are published and explicit. It would be a rare employer nowadays who does not have a childcare policy, but you ask how many of them have a carers policy. There is still a long way to go. I would be interested to know from the Minister how the Government propose to ensure that employers both know and fulfil their obligations under the new Work and Families Act.
	Let us never forget that it makes sound economic as well as moral good sense to support carers who want to combine paid work with caring duties. It benefits the carers, of course. It benefits them socially, economically and psychologically, but employers gain too in retention of staff, saving recruitment costs, being a favoured employer and staying ahead of the competition. But we all as a society benefit from enabling carers to balance their working life with caring because recognising the carers' need for this balance helps to tackle skills shortages, reduces the number of people dependent on state pensions in the future and helps to produce a more stable society by enabling people to do what most want to do—provide care for their families and have a job which is both financially beneficial and satisfying.

Lord Newby: My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, on introducing the debate. The definition of work/life balance that I would like to adopt is that of the Work Foundation: it is about having a measure of control over when, where and how you work. I agree very much with the noble Lords, Lord Giddens and Lord Sawyer, that work is an integral and valuable part of people's lives and that the question is not whether work is a good thing but whether one feels that one has control of one's life, in which work plays a very large part.
	As the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, pointed out, there is a particular irony in the House discussing this issue as, so far as the commitment to this House is concerned, we as Members of it have virtually no control over when, where and how we work. I have never found the Whips particularly sensitive to the concept of work/life balance. While I do not wish to introduce a controversial note to today's proceedings I hope that, in future, maiden speeches will take place before Statements. Apart from adding temporary stress to my noble friend Lady Thomas of Winchester, who spoke excellently despite the delay, one or more of my colleagues who came in for that speech could not hear it because they were balancing their lives and had to leave. That was a great pity.
	Like me, many of your Lordships probably feel that we have not been able to moderate or control the demands on our time at work, and that by any objective test our own work/life balance has been less than ideal. Clearly, that view is held more by noble Baronesses in your Lordships' House because there is certainly an imbalance of participants. As many speakers have pointed out, despite all the changes that have taken place, in most households women still retain prime responsibility for caring, whether for children or elderly dependants, which creates problems in the balance of their lives.
	Looking at the economy at large, the work/life balance of the generality of those in work is probably more satisfactory than at any time since the factory system became standard at the start of the industrial revolution. Many changes have led to improvements but I give this Government credit for introducing a whole raft of measures, such as legislation on the minimum wage, maternity and paternity leave, and part-time or flexible working, which has enabled many more people to have a more satisfactory work/life balance. Yet, as many noble Lords have explained, many people are not satisfied with their work/life balance and feel powerless to do anything about it. That is borne out by the polls, which show that the overall perception of general well-being has been at a static or declining level over the past 30 years, despite unprecedented levels of personal income. Why is this and what can be done about it?
	Three years ago the Government identified three principal recent trends which have resulted in people feeling that they did not have control over when, where and how they worked. First, they identified the move away from the traditional working structure in families, with many more two-income households than a generation ago and a large increase in the number of lone-parent households. I recognise the description by the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, of family life when she was growing up because it closely mirrored my own, but it is not the norm now in most communities in Britain. Secondly, there is an increase in the number of employees with caring responsibilities, partly because many women who had caring responsibilities in the past but were not at work now are at work, and partly because people are living longer. Thirdly, the business environment, whether in the public or private sector, is becoming more competitive, partly because of the way in which communications are working, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, mentioned. Many people feel under greater pressure in their jobs than a generation ago, when, for example, at my father's workplace, the headquarters of a regional electricity board, a claxon sounded at 5.30 pm and if anybody was still at their desk at 5.35 pm, people asked questions. There has been quite a reversal in the way work is perceived.
	There has also been a welcome reduction in deference towards all institutions. People simply will not put up with constraints on the way they behave and choose to work, in the way that my father's generation, who were brought up in the shadow of the great depression, were prepared to do. That is reflected in the growing importance attached to work/life balance by new graduates, which was referred to.
	I agree very much with the noble Baroness, Lady Kingsmill, in one of the many points that she made in her excellent maiden speech, that there is not one issue here and that a number of groups need to be considered separately: first, the problems faced by young, pre-family employees; secondly, parents; and, thirdly, people at or above pension age. While there is, arguably, a unifying theme of flexibility, which has been much discussed today, those three groups have different problems.
	For young people, particularly in some professional firms, there is a macho culture in which they are expected to be at work often late into the evening, day after day and at weekends. Equally, a number of employers still try to take advantage of na-ve young employees, if they can get away with it. Another issue that bears down on young people to a greater extent than in my youth is debt, the combination of student debt and housing—and the fact that buying your own home tends to increase debt. The problems, referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, are that young people decreasingly play a part in society and make the contribution to community life that we would wish.
	However, the majority of the debate has, rightly, been about parents and the problems of the work/life balance of people with children, because, the point at which most people have young children is when they feel least in control of their lives. A number of things have improved considerably: women's careers are much less constrained by marriage and having children than in previous generations. When I started work in the Civil Service, people were still telling stories about male civil servants who had met their wives in the Civil Service, and when they got married the wife had to resign. That is unimaginable today. Equally, my wife, like the noble Baroness, Lady Kingsmill, was the first solicitor at her firm to work part time after having children, but it quickly became clear to her that that was not sustainable and that if she wanted to improve her status in the firm, she would have to work full time—at which point, she left. Ironically, I should tell the right reverend Prelate, she is now a Church of England vicar, and the problems of work/life balance re-emerged in a somewhat different form.
	The other major change has been that fathers are now much more willing to play a significant part in the daily burden of looking after children, which is surely a good thing. Out of all the evidence and polling that I have seen, the one fact that struck me, which reflected a major shift, was that nine out of 10 fathers claim to feel as confident as their partners in caring for their babies and that the majority of them want to do more. That is a major improvement, even from when I first became a father.
	A number of things still need to be done to improve flexibility to make it more acceptable for men to take more time off. I agree with everything that the noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, said about the need for a multi-layered approach to closing the pay gap, and I also agreed with the noble Baroness, Lady Howells of St. Davids, that mental illness is a huge problem, about which, it appears, something more can be done at proportionate cost—and I very much hope that it is.
	The final group is pensioners. The trick, in years to come, will be how we make it easier for people of what is now pensionable age to continue working, not necessarily at full tilt and, possibly, on a declining slope as they get older. In that respect, the pension rules need to encourage people to take the state pension at a later age, as recommended by the Turner commission, and there needs to be a split for people wanting to take a partial pension and a partial wage.
	This debate has demonstrated the benefits to individuals, employers and society generally of achieving a satisfactory work/life balance. We need now to keep the pressure on to increase further the proportion of people who can take full control of their lives.

Baroness Miller of Hendon: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baronesses, Lady Kingsmill and Lady Thomas of Winchester, on their most excellent maiden speeches. We all hope to hear them often. It was clever of them to join this important debate, initiated so well by the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, which comes at an opportune time, for two reasons. First, it comes so soon after the Work and Families Bill, which has played a part in nearly everyone's speeches today, and, among other things, is about,
	"statutory rights to leave and pay in connection with the birth or adoption of children",
	and dealing with carers, and the important subject of flexible working. The Bill adds substantially to the rights of fathers to additional paternity leave and pay. This comes at a time when modern fathers take an increasing share in ordinary household duties, including the routine of bringing up their children.
	The second reason why this debate is opportune is that in two major speeches in the past month, my right honourable friend the Leader of the Opposition has set out his own personal views on,
	"improving society's sense of well being",
	and on family life. It is possible that these personal views will play a part in formulating the policies to be adopted by the Conservative Party before the next election. The committees that are looking into all these things have not yet completed their work.
	This debate is about work/life balance, and I would like to talk first about "work", and then about "life balance"—although I agree with the noble Lords, Lord Giddens, Lord Sawyer and Lord Newby, that work is a very important part of your life balance. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to enjoy our work know that.
	On 2 July 2004, we debated the working time directive with reference to the report of the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Williamson of Horton. The report concluded that UK workers should retain the right to opt out of the 48-hour week provision. He stated that it was particularly suitable for British circumstances and that it preserved the rights of those who wanted to or needed to work. We endorse that conclusion because it is an unfortunate fact of life that if you want more material things you have to work for them.
	British people are anxious to own rather than rent their homes, which is why we have so many more home owners than renters and a vastly higher number of people paying mortgages than is the norm on the Continent. It is quite different. With all due modesty, I wish to quote what I said during the debate on the working time directive:
	"In a free society there is no reason why those with personal ambition to progress in their field of work or to acquire more for themselves and their families, or for whatever reason, should be prevented from doing so".—[Official Report, 2/8/04; col. 498.]
	As the Leader of the Opposition pointed out in his speech to the Google Zeitgeist Conference only the other day:
	"It's time we focussed not just on GDP, but on GWB—general well being".
	I do not say GDP too often now, I say GWB. That was the phrase that caught the media's attention but a few sentences later he said:
	"Politicians should not dictate how people should live their lives . . . I believe in trusting people—that if you let people make their own decisions, they and society will grow stronger".
	Returning to that theme in his speech on 20 June, the Leader of the Opposition stated:
	"Enlarging the political culture to include discussion of the family is one thing. The government stepping in with its battalions is quite another".
	He also stated:
	"So on the most important element—family life—of the most important social challenge of our day—general well-being—politicians need to be involved, without being coercive".
	Since, to quote the poet, we,
	"expect to pass through this world but once",
	we should live it as we choose as far as lies within our personal power and within the boundaries of legality and, importantly, socially accepted norms. Those socially accepted norms are undoubtedly changing. Couples living together, families divided by divorce, single parents and unmarried mothers are now far from rare and are, quite rightly, no longer stigmatised. Civil partnerships represent a new element that has just been introduced into the social equation. They, too, require the same tolerance and lack of discrimination as must be accorded to all the other departures from what was the accepted norm in our parents' generation. So much has changed.
	David Cameron seeks this tolerance from the public. As has been repeatedly emphasised, in the end children's interests must be paramount. No one would disagree that the ideal situation for children is to grow up with two loving parents in a conflict-free home, but that ideal is not always achievable. Children inevitably have to settle for whichever of those elements is available to them. Sometimes, what exists of those elements will still provide a happy and stable home life for the children. We should all be pleased when that is so, for the sake of the children.
	The Conservatives are currently not making any spending commitments, because we are not in a position to do so and are still some few years away from taking power from the present Government. However, we have said that we will revise the tax regime which, at present, in the form of tax credits, is complex, unfair and a cause of distress to many people. Because of its bureaucratic form, it swallows up money which would be better spent on the families who really need it. We must help parents who wish or need to work, by making more allowances for childcare. As David Cameron pointed out, it is offensive that the head of a public company can get an allowance for his chauffeur but a working woman cannot get one for someone who looks after her child. Transferable tax benefits, which we are also examining, will undoubtedly help some couples, but not those who are paying little or no tax anyway, so we will look at a cocktail of solutions.
	I have felt somewhat under attack during this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Haskel, had the courtesy to tell me in advance what he intended to ask me. The idea that we think that a single merciless market is the way shows that the noble Lord has misinterpreted. I believe it was Lord Shaftesbury who started the idea of Factory Acts, and many Acts since then. As we read only a few days ago, Loughborough is closing and all the work is being moved to China. There was a whole big thing about it. Markets and circumstances change, something we must all live with. The noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, seemed to think it quite wrong for David Cameron to speak about certain things that he approved of which he had previously voted against. If the noble Baroness thinks that politicians do not change their mind on serious matters from time to time, she should look at the big change that the Prime Minister made, from being a member of CND to supporting nuclear. I make those points only to show that politicians change their minds.
	I cannot believe that the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, is criticising noble Lords for taking the day off to go to Ascot today, when we are talking about work/life balance. No doubt many people went to Ascot from all sides of the House. Good luck to them; I hope they won plenty of money.
	In summary, to have a population that is well paid and happy in its work—a matter brought up by the noble Lords, Lord Giddens and Lord Sawyer—able to enjoy its leisure time and have a happy life is an ideal that we should all strive for. I believe that my noble friend Lord Selsdon has somehow achieved it; we all enjoyed his speech. In the real world, achieving four out of four of those objectives is regrettably not realistic for a large part of the population. The responsibility of the state is to help not to hinder, to support not to direct, the ideal work/life balance that this debate calls for.
	In my own defence, I applaud the women who were able to go to work early. Although I stayed at home, as soon as my children were old enough I went to work. I have had a long working life. I have not retired; I am on the Front Bench here. I look after my 98 year-old mother, who lives with me. I have enjoyed this debate very much.

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Gale on initiating this debate on a subject so central to the Government's policies. In the last nine years, the Government have made major and careful advances in this area, which is now a real success story. I also congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Kingsmill, on her excellent maiden speech. In this House, we value expertise, wisdom and commitment. I am therefore sure that I speak for the whole House in saying that we look forward to many more speeches from the noble Baroness in future. I should also say how impressive everyone found the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester. It was balanced, drawing attention to the progress that has been made but also looking at the problems that we still have. Whatever she may wish us to believe, this was not the speech of a novice; it seemed to me that it was the speech of someone with a good understanding of the House of Lords. Again, we look forward to many more speeches from her.
	Many interesting and important points have been raised during this constructive and valuable debate, all of which I have listened to with great interest. The values that my parents gave me, however, were clearly that any debate that delays lunch until three o'clock should be taken as a serious and appalling infringement of work/life balance.
	The Government are strongly persuaded of the need for employees to be able to strike a good balance between their family and working lives. A good work/life balance is important not only for employees but also for employers, enabling them to draw on a wider pool of skills and talents in the workforce, to improve recruitment and retention rates and to increase staff morale and productivity.
	This debate is particularly timely because our Work and Families Act received Royal Assent just yesterday. I agree totally with the noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, that this area is not for warm words, but for legislation to drive the agenda forward properly. As the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, constantly reminded us during consideration of the Company Law Reform Bill, "Warm words butter no parsnips". That applies to employment as well as other areas of life.
	Last Sunday was Father's Day. No doubt with this in mind, the Equal Opportunities Commission recently published some research, Dads and their Babies: a household analysis. This report contains a number of encouraging findings which will contribute to and stimulate the debate on fathers' role in the upbringing of their children. The Government are proud of their record in providing fathers with a greater opportunity to do this. The introduction of paid paternity leave for the first time in 2003 has made a real difference to thousands of working parents and their children. Particularly welcome is the positive support from fathers on our proposals in the Work and Families Act for additional paternity leave and pay. Overall, four in five fathers in the Equal Opportunities Commission's research expressed support for this. It is also encouraging to see that most employers are playing their part, too—according to the Equal Opportunities Commission report, two-thirds of fathers say that they received full paternity leave. This is supported by the Government's own research.
	Paid paternity leave is just one element of the package of family-friendly policies that we have introduced and are building on with the new Act. Together, those policies have, in the past few years, brought about a major change in the culture of the British workplace. The Government have for a number of years been committed to changing workplace culture by encouraging organisations of all sizes to implement good work/life balance and flexible working practices. We have seen the term "work/life balance" increasingly become part of everyday language; for a great many organisations, work/life balance practices and flexible working policies have become embedded as key elements of good business practice. Companies large and small are seeing the benefits in tangible results.
	Just last month, the Prudential published its corporate responsibility report for 2005–06. It highlighted the importance of the company engaging with its employees and understanding their expectations about, among other things, work/life balance. This understanding helps the company to attract, retain and motivate its employees.
	In April 2003, the Government took a major step forward in addressing the work/life balance by introducing new rights for working parents. We have built a strong foundation of support for working families. Since 1997, we have created 1.2 million additional childcare places, guaranteed all three and four year-olds a free part-time nursery place and improved financial support through increased child benefit and working tax credits. Parents have benefited from improved maternity leave and pay and new rights to paternity and adoption leave. Recent surveys have shown that, in 2004, 57 per cent of workplaces provided fully paid maternity leave and that, in 2005, 70 per cent of fathers received fully paid paternity leave.
	So what are the benefits of flexible working? They range from increased staff loyalty and motivation through to saving on recruitment costs, reducing staff turnover and absenteeism, and attracting and retaining a talented workforce. Increased good will and a more flexible attitude on the part of employees can benefit the bottom line. For BT, for example, the availability of flexible working arrangements has resulted in improved retention, with 99 per cent of women returning to the company after maternity leave, saving about £5 million in recruitment and induction costs. Giving staff more control and choice over the hours that they work and how they deliver their work leads to a greater sense of well-being and reduced sickness absence. Companies also tell us that not only their staff but their customers benefit through an improved service.
	A key way of achieving a healthy work/life balance is flexible working. The Government are committed to encouraging greater take-up of flexible working to the benefit of both employers and employees, through promoting the advantages of work/life balance policies alongside targeted light-touch legislation.
	I believe that most people accept that the original right to request flexible working for parents of children has been a great success, helping many people to change their working patterns. Almost a quarter of employees with dependent children under six have asked to work flexibly in the last two years. The law's targeted approach has undoubtedly been the key to its success so far. Organisations have been able to offer flexible working at a pace that they can manage and, because they have seen the benefits, they have offered flexible working opportunities to more staff. Now 5.4 million employees work through some form of flexible working arrangement; if we include those working part time, the figure is 9.5 million.
	The latest figures show that 47 per cent of mothers work flexitime compared to just 17 per cent in 2002, and almost triple the number of new fathers now work flexibly. It is no longer the norm that people travel to work in the rush hour to sit at their desk every day; now people can log on at home, check their e-mails and then take their children to school. Although we have made considerable progress, we know that there is still more that we can do. The Work and Families Act will give families real choices about how they balance their work and caring responsibilities and it will help organisations to recruit and retain people from the widest pool of talent.
	We are extending maternity leave, making it easier for women to have a genuine choice about when they return to work. We will also make it easier for employers to manage the administration of these rights, and for employers and parents to stay in touch during maternity leave. Women can choose when their maternity pay will start, allowing their pay and leave to start at the same time. Employers and employees will be able to agree a limited number of "keeping in touch" days, without sacrificing statutory payments or bringing a woman's maternity leave to an end. Fathers will have a new right to additional paternity leave so that they can take a greater role in bringing up their children, something we know that both mothers and fathers value.
	We are extending the right to request flexible working to carers of adults. There are 6.5 million people in the UK with caring responsibilities, around 3.5 million of whom are working. This new law will help those carers who want to stay in work to better balance their caring and work responsibilities and it will enable employers to keep their skills within the workplace.
	Two other issues that it is necessary to tackle if people are going to have the option to achieve a healthy work/life balance are the long-hours culture and annual leave. The Government fully support the working time directive, which was introduced in the UK in 1998. We are committed to implementing the directive in a way that offers protection and choice to individuals while retaining labour market flexibility.
	I say to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham that the Government are committed to tackling the long-hours culture but without removing workers' choices. We have done this in a number of ways, including by encouraging employers to offer flexible working opportunities while also introducing measures to counter long working hours. We want to help people to achieve more choices in the way in which they work; for some people, this includes the right to work longer hours if they want to.
	We think that our approach is working. Both the proportion of people working more than 48 hours a week and the length of the average working week have been falling every year since 1997. The average number of hours worked in a week is at an all-time low. Latest figures show that there are as many people working fewer than 37½ hours per week as there are people working longer than that. However, creating a culture in which we work smarter rather than longer is the key to improving worker satisfaction as well as to improving competitiveness and productivity.
	The ability to spend time away from the workplace is also an important element in the work/life balance. It is anomalous that generally the lowest paid have time off for bank holidays included in their annual holiday entitlement. In our election manifesto, the Government made a commitment to make paid leave for bank holidays additional to the annual holiday entitlement. The Government recently launched an initial consultation on increasing the holiday entitlement to reflect the number of permanent bank and public holidays. For someone working full time, holiday entitlement will increase from 20 days to 28 days a year, pro-rated for those working part time.
	I now turn to some of the specific points raised in the debate. It is difficult to respond simply to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, but he demonstrated clearly that, over the past 50 years, there has been some progress in family life and the linkage between parents and their children. My noble friend Lady McIntosh of Hudnall drew attention to the pressures on young people at the start of their working lives. The Government are well aware of those pressures, but it is difficult to see what action they can take to deal with the problem. There is an element of choice here. My noble friend Lord Giddens was right to stress the change in attitudes and values of young people. Some of the statistics that he gave were extremely interesting in illustrating how rapidly the field is changing and how we need to keep revising our views if we are to devise relevant policies. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham asked why we do not extend the right to request flexible working to parents of older children. We agree that flexible working should be promoted in the workplace. Indeed, any employee can already ask to work flexibly regardless of whether they have a statutory right.
	Responses to our consultation before introducing the Bill highlighted that a key factor in the success of the law has been its targeted rather than blanket approach, which enables employers to manage and grow flexible working in their individual organisations. The retention of that principle is important to employers, as they express concerns about managing requests for a wider section of the workforce. Small businesses in particular have stressed that their resources to meet an increasing demand are limited, so we have to be careful about widening the scope of the law. In that context, let me say how much I agree with my noble friend Lord Haskel that these changes must be made carefully, because they involve people's lives.
	My noble friend Lady Pitkeathley asked how the Government will ensure that employers fulfil their responsibilities under the Work and Families Act 2006. The Government are working hard to ensure that up-to-date, consistent and coherent guidance is made available to all employers on how to fulfil their obligations under the Act. In the final balance, those are statutory obligations and employers will be required to observe them.
	My noble friend Lady Howells spoke about encouraging employers to meet Health and Safety Executive guidelines on workplace stress and to tackle stress more generally. The Health and Safety Executive has developed an approach to help organisations to take sensible and practical steps to minimise work-related stress. Indeed, with input from a range of businesses, professional bodies and unions, the HSE has developed stress management standards to help employers in that regard. Those standards, which were launched over a year ago, are supported by a toolkit and guidance to help employers. Employees and their representatives work together to gauge stress levels, compare themselves with other organisations and identify solutions.
	Finally, my noble friend Lady Howells raised the question of quality part-time work. The Government are committed to taking action on all areas highlighted in the Women and Work Commission report. We are working with business to find ways of encouraging quality part-time work and spreading best practice. The Government will issue a more detailed response in the coming months.
	The Government have introduced a major programme of reform in recent years to enable employees to strike the right balance between work and family life. This programme of reform has been immensely successful in changing the work culture in our workplaces. It is very encouraging to see the Leader of the Official Opposition and his party, who have consistently voted against this legislation, now lining up behind it. We look forward to the Opposition supporting this very important work as we take it forward to the next stage.

Lord Selsdon: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, would he be kind enough to give some hope to those in retirement about getting back to work? I remind him that every year on the day of San Giuseppe, the worker, the Pope makes a speech on the role of work in society, saying that man works to live and does not live to work. Could he find some mechanism to help those in retirement to do some part-time work, because thousands of people in this country would wish so to do?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, I have no problem in giving that assurance. It is up to the individual. There is nothing preventing anyone from going back to work. Age discrimination laws will make that easier. For noble Lords, there is, of course, always the option of self-employment and setting up a business, which after a major period in the House of Lords might be a very agreeable way to spend one's retirement.

Baroness Miller of Hendon: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, will he clarify what he said about our consistently voting against this legislation?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, I would not have made that statement without having checked the facts. Mr Cameron has voted against the introduction of two weeks' paid paternity leave, the extension of maternity leave to 26 weeks, the right to request flexible working, and increased maternity pay. He also opposed the working tax credit and child tax credits. The noble Baroness's party has opposed part-time workers having the same rights as full-time workers, the right to four weeks' paid leave, the national minimum wage and the right to three months' adoption leave. I think that that is a clear case.

Baroness Miller of Hendon: My Lords, I just tell the noble Lord that we have been totally for the Work and Families Act all the way through. We did not vote against it at all. I think that I have made the point about politicians sometimes changing their minds.

Baroness Gale: My Lords, I thank everyone who has taken part in the debate. I give a special mention to the two Baronesses who made their maiden speeches. I congratulate them both on making excellent speeches and I look forward to their further contributions in your Lordships' House. I thank them very much for choosing this debate in which to make their maiden speeches.
	What has come out of the debate is a history of the family and how families operate in today's society and manage their lives through this new concept of work/life balance. There was agreement among practically everybody on the Government's approach to the work/life balance and their family-friendly policies. I am sure that the Government will continue to look at this aspect of our lives. I thank the Minister for his response. I understand his caution in replying to those of us who asked for a great extension to, for example, flexible working. As he said, the policy has been a great success because it was targeted. I am sure that, as time goes by, we will see it extended as more people and employers see the benefit of doing so.
	We need new ways of organising our families plus new ways of organising work. If we had a theme of working together—men, women, business and industry—that would provide a much better way of life. We are moving towards that now in the policies that our Labour Government have put forward over the past few years. They are good policies, as everybody has said, and it looks to me as though other parties are now adopting them. I do not think that we will see a return to our old way of life.
	Time is getting on. I am pleased that everyone was able to stay for this debate. I thank everyone once again for their contributions and I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Child Welfare Services

Lord Giddens: rose to call attention to the impact of changes in child welfare services on life chances; and to move for Papers.
	My Lords, this is a first in the history of your Lordships' House. It is the first time that there has been a seamless transition from one debate to another. Work/life balance should certainly not just be for affluent people; it is even more important for poorer people and in relation to the issues we will be discussing in the debate.
	When I knew that I would be initiating this debate, I looked to see whether I could find any jokes about child poverty. Well, there aren't too many. However, there are lots of jokes about poverty, often told by the poor—for example: "Your mamma is so poor that when I went round to her house I asked to go to the bathroom. She said: 'Third tree to the right'". It is often said the poor are a joke to the rich and the rich are a joke to the poor. I think that this is true in our class-divided society. I want to emphasise that, in what I have to say, our society is still heavily class divided, and we have a long way to go to eradicate some of the worse forms of poverty and inequality which are found within it.
	I begin by introducing noble Lords to the Omar family, about whom more details can be found on the Shelter website with lots of other details about what it is like to live in poverty in an affluent society such as ours. The Omar family have moved through several areas in search of work. They are currently trapped in an appallingly damp and cold house with no proper heating. A family of five is crammed into two bedrooms. All the members of the family are constantly ill, and because of damp and mould 14 month-old Aasha has recurring colds, flu and chest infections. One month-old Sufia is already poorly and their mother Mariam suffers from rheumatism. Repeated letters to the council from their doctor and pleas for help have been ignored. What Mariam says about this is quite plaintive, but could be generalised to many people living at the bottom of our society:
	"I'm not asking for the best things . . . a warm house . . . that's all I really want".
	What hope is there for children brought up in these circumstances? Although this debate is more generally about child welfare, I will concentrate primarily on child poverty and the Government's programme of seeking to radically reduce it.
	Child poverty is the most pernicious form of poverty for several reasons. First, children are necessarily innocent. You might ask of other poor people why they do not make the effort, go out and get a job, and get on with things. You certainly cannot say that of children brought up in situations of poverty. Secondly, child poverty shortens lives. Children such as Aasha and Sufia have a life expectancy that is seven years shorter than those from more affluent backgrounds. Thirdly, as we know from a great deal of research, child poverty affects almost everything else. Children from poor backgrounds far more often leave school with no qualifications, are far more often unemployed, or fall into criminality and teenage pregnancy. The list of problems goes on.
	Some people say that poverty more generally and child poverty particularly are the price one has to pay for economic progress. This is not true. Some countries in Europe have low levels of child poverty, especially the Scandinavian countries. The level of child poverty there is down to between 4 per cent and 5 per cent, but these are at the same time the most economically successful countries in Europe. There is a direct relationship between overcoming child poverty and a civilised society. A mark of a civilised society is one where levels of child poverty are low. By that reckoning the UK is not a civilised country. In 1997, we ranked 14th out of 15 EU countries on levels of child poverty—a truly appalling situation. Only Greece had a higher level of child poverty than we did.
	It is quite often said that the present Government are not radical and that they do not confront the serious problems facing our society. You could not say this in respect of child poverty. In March 1999, I was lucky enough to be present at Toynbee Hall when Tony Blair gave the Beveridge lecture in which he uttered these now celebrated words—at least celebrated in the abundant child poverty literature:
	"Our historic aim is that ours is the first generation to end child poverty forever."
	You could not get much more radical than that. He also quoted the Chancellor:
	"Children are 20 per cent of the population but 100 per cent of the future".
	A moment's reflection will show that this cannot possibly be true, but it is a nice-sounding observation.
	The stated goals that the Government have set for child poverty are themselves radical: to reduce child poverty by 25 per cent by the end of 2005—a target which was unfortunately missed—by 50 per cent by 2010 and to abolish it completely by 2020. They deserve enormous credit for taking this issue so seriously and for setting up a wide range of policies oriented to it. There is a whole barrage of such policies from the Government relevant to the aim of radically reducing child poverty. These include the working tax credit and child tax credit, Sure Start—originally based on the US programme Head Start—the minimum wage, the children's trust fund, the national childcare strategy, and many other policies. There has also been a barrage of reports. Again to its credit, the Treasury has produced a sequence of documents since 1998 about child poverty and how to reduce it, which culminated in a major report in 2004. The Fabian Society recently set up a commission on child poverty and life chances, which is also a sound and interesting piece of work. It recommended no less than 14 proposals for the Government to consider.
	The results of government policy are very visible. It depends on how you calculate it, but many more than 700,000 children have been lifted out of poverty. That is short of the original target but a substantial achievement by any reckoning. From 14th in the EU league table of 15, this country now stands 10th overall in levels of child poverty in Europe. That is not nearly good enough but, nevertheless, it is certainly a move in the right direction. Overall, about 2.5 million people have been lifted out of poverty since 1997, which is a great achievement. Previous Labour Governments have found it difficult to deliver on their promises about inequality, partly because they were not in power for long enough and partly because they did not introduce the sort of sound policies related to full employment, not just social justice, which the current Government have introduced.
	I am very pleased to see that there is now something of a cross-party consensus on that. In the previous debate on so-called work/life balance, interestingly, there also seemed to be a cross-party consensus. Will parties exist in future? We shall see, but I am very pleased that there is an agreement that we must further reduce levels of child poverty.
	In concluding, I shall comment on two aspects. First, I shall list some of the difficulties that the Government—indeed, any government—will face in taking the aim of reducing child poverty radically further. Finally, I shall make some comments on policy initiatives that the Government may consider and on which the Minister may consider commenting. I mention three main sources of difficulty, although there are many others on which, no doubt, other noble Lords will expand and comment.
	First, one could argue that the Government have plucked the low-lying fruit. They have got a considerable number of children out of poverty by getting their parents out of poverty, but the first bit is the easiest. Getting people into work who are very close to the threshold of being able to work is much easier than dealing with situations of more deeply embedded poverty. The Government set a target of 70 per cent of lone parents being in work by 2010. That is quite right, because lone parent households are a significant contributor to child poverty. But, at the moment, the progress towards that is not as marked as it should be if the target is to be anywhere near reached. We need to know from the Government what the second-stage policy will be.
	Secondly, there are significant problems with ethnic minorities in respect of child poverty. For example, the poverty rate among children of Bangladeshi or Pakistani origin is more than 60 per cent—three times the national rate—suggesting that there are special and difficult issues there that must be confronted.
	Thirdly, as we all know, reducing child poverty is trying to hit a moving target. Child poverty, like poverty in general, is now defined by the Government according to the EU definition: those living on less than 60 per cent of the median wage—it used to be less than 50 per cent. That means that we are trying to hit a moving target because the more that you do to alleviate poverty, the more the previously ascribed poverty level moves up. It has been criticised by many anti-poverty groups, but I think that it is sensible to have a range of measures of success including an absolute measure of progress made since 1997 through the targets, not only a relative measure.
	In conclusion, I have just a few comments about possible policies. First, I would like the Government to affirm a progressive consensus about life chances and further eradication of child poverty. The Government have created a more egalitarian society, but they have not wanted to own up to doing so. We should stand for a more egalitarian society and make that part of an overall centre-left consensus. Secondly, we should recognise the complexity of both poverty and child poverty. We know that there are far more people who experience poverty than we once thought, but there are also far more people who escape from poverty than was once thought. That has revolutionised poverty studies. For example, it means that we sometimes have to target policy at those above the poverty line to stop them either falling into poverty or falling back into poverty. It also means that we need to give special attention to those who suffer from severe, embedded poverty—a rather different category from most people who are poor. Thirdly, child-poverty measures obviously cannot stand on their own. That is why there is an important connection between the two debates. The position of women is crucial to increasing the life chances of poorer children. Fourthly, the very notion of child welfare is changing. I imagine other noble Lords will speak about this.
	I remember some interesting material on child poverty a generation ago. One of the questions it asked was, "Do you ever remember going to bed hungry?". One of the issues affecting poor children now is overeating and obesity. This country now has the highest rates of adult and child obesity in Europe. Twenty-two per cent of the population is clinically obese, and a larger number overeat. This is a class-related issue; it affects poor people far more than more affluent people.
	Finally, I would like the Government to make a connection between their policies—they are certainly trying to do so—on reducing child poverty and their wider educational policies. I was very sorry not to be able to speak in the debate yesterday. I am a fervent believer in choice in education. This country suffers from a kind of phoney universalism in healthcare and education. It is pretended that everyone is the same. The result is that only affluent people get choice. We should affirm the principle of choice for poorer people. This would be a very important part of the educational qualifications and life chances of poorer children, and I would like the Minister to comment in conclusion on that. I beg to move for Papers.

Lord Lucas: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, for giving us the chance to debate this subject. As he ended by saying, this is really just a continuation of last night's debate. I am here with the prime purpose of heaping praise on the Government in general and the Minister in particular, as we all did for six hours yesterday. Indeed, I shall be talking mostly about schools, because what interests me is life chances.
	All of us—the poor and the rich—have life chances, but you have to be ready and prepared for them to be able to make use of them. You have to be able to recognise them and to have the mindset that enables you to take advantage of them. That is mostly a mindset that the young in particular will pick up at school. Some will be lucky and will have homes where this is encouraged, but school will have a very large influence. At independent schools, the core of this readiness to take advantage of life chances comes through the extra-curricular programme. Now we have a Government who say that they will consider increasing the funding of state schools to independent-school levels. Presumably that will entail state schools once again having a really vibrant extra-curricular life, as the best do.
	Such an extra-curricular life was greatly impoverished in the 1960s and later as a result, initially, of the industrial action taken by teachers. It would be wonderful to get back to that, because that is what really opens children's eyes to the opportunities that are available to them. It gives them a little experience of them and of success, which will give them the confidence to take opportunities when they occur and to make the effort to go that extra mile to learn a bit more to equip themselves. They can then branch out from what might seem to be an otherwise narrow life expectation, which for some is the possibility of a third generation in continuous unemployment.
	My wife spends her life working with prisoners. She takes groups of 20 of the most challenged prisoners who have really failed at education and who have very poor communication abilities. In a few weeks, she turns them into people who want to succeed and who have found not only an ambition but a way forward. That can be done at any age. It is actually quite easy with prisoners, because they are all stuck there. By the time they are 25, they jolly well want to make a success of their lives; they just do not know how. They have lost the rebelliousness of youth. Earlier in her life my wife succeeded in doing that in schools. It is not easy; it takes time, expertise and, of course, money, but all this is now promised to us by the Government. I would be delighted to see that come through.
	We need far more sport in schools. We need far more by way of culture. All these young people of my children's generation, intent on acting careers, spend large amounts of time doing nothing very productive with all their thespian skills. Get them out there around the schools, organising plays and events. Young musicians are much the same: get them out there, giving people the experience of participating in plays, music and other cultural activities, such as painting, with people who are expert in these things. Getting people in from outside schools who participate in this kind of thing is an uplifting experience. The schools that succeed in these subjects are the ones that involve people from outside. However, it takes additional money.
	Look at what we can do within the curriculum to inspire people to take up subjects. There is terribly little left in our standard curriculum that really lights the flame. For those to whom the subject comes naturally it is wonderful, but the mathematics curriculum has no fun in it. There is nothing in the maths GCSE which delights the ordinary child. There is precious little left in history and geography, which ought to be the sort of subjects that capture people's imaginations. To make kids of 16 study Shakespeare as if it were a penance is ridiculous. Again, coming back to my wife's experience, Shakespeare works wonderfully in prison, particularly with black prisoners, because you can rap it—it has the rhythm in it. It was written for the masses, so do Shakespeare like that; do it as an experience. Let people catch on to the magic of Shakespeare, rather than having to treat it as a total rigmarole.
	We should use what there now is in modern technology. There is so much that the young are using that we really do not experience: the whole business of blogs and websites and what you can do with them. There is a lot there which kids, even at the beginning of secondary school, can start to participate in. Because it leads on to other things on the web, it gives them a sense of what is out there. Because so much commercial life is on the web, it will also give them skills that will be useful afterwards.
	Let us support the great outward bound activities, such as the Duke of Edinburgh's Award and Young Enterprise. Let us teach people how to cook. Home economics is a subject now almost entirely confined to the independent sector, where it flourishes. If we want people to enjoy healthy eating, let them experience what it is to cook something wonderful themselves. Jamie Oliver's recipes are enormously accessible. The delight of finishing up with something you could never buy in Tesco and the pride of taking something like that home to their parents is something children should experience. There is so much we can do after school, with a considerable amount of time and money. This is what independent schools do and it is one of the great reasons why parents use them: they are giving pupils an experience that goes beyond what has become a very Gradgrind curriculum.
	We can take that outside the school, too. What the Government have been doing in opening schools up to the public is wonderful. If you have a play coming to your school, invite everybody; involve the community. If there is a jazz band playing, let everybody come to hear them. If you want people to help pupils experience chess or any other activity, bring someone in from outside. As my noble friend was saying at the end of the last debate, there are thousands of retired people who know how to do things and who would love to be involved. Involve the Scouts and Guides in schools much better than at present. Make them something that is part of the school experience, but extends it outside.
	I believe that we are going to come on to this in the schools Bill. In terms of provision for youth in the community, it is terribly important to give young people something constructive to do. Let us hope that in 20 years' time we no longer see street signs saying "No ball games". That is a terribly anti-youth thing. It says, "Go away. We don't want you. We have no space in our community for the noise and enjoyment of youth". It would be really nice to see an attitude that welcomed the exuberance of youth as part of our ordinary community rather than the sense at the moment that we are rather frightened of it. I am thinking of ASBOs, hoodies and all those other obsessions of the Daily Mail which I would be delighted to see gone.
	This is a hopeful debate and I hope to learn a great deal from it. The noble Lord, Lord Giddens, asked, "What hope for these children?". There is every hope for these children; without hope there is nothing. They are our children and we should always have hope and the highest expectations of them. I end with one last plea, and here I echo the request of the noble Lord, Lord Giddens. It is a request for a measure of poverty which is absolute. To set ourselves a target that can never be reached because as we get close it moves further away is ridiculous. We ought to have a measure that has an absolute value and is one we can set our eyes on and get to, even if having got there we then want to go beyond it.

Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: My Lords, as bad as are the problems of child poverty so ably described by the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, there are some other evils that happen to children in this country today. Cases have been brought to my attention which lead me to suspect that the Adoption Act is not working as I hope the Government intended that it should—"hope", because if what is in fact happening is what the Government intended, it would be the most disgraceful state of affairs.
	In the past month my attention has been drawn to two cases where children have been removed from their families on highly controversial and unsubstantiated, let alone unproven, evidence of abuse, and put up for adoption, or in one case adopted, so that the parents have no hope of ever getting their children back. I am very much afraid that this is only the tip of an iceberg. I have heard of a number of cases over the years and I expect that many of your Lordships have too.
	In the most recent case, where I cannot give names for fear that the plaintiff may be under a gagging order, a one year-old girl whose mother has long-term mental health problems was placed nine months ago with her grandmother, who was given a glowing assessment as to her parenting ability. The child is very attached to her. But eight years ago this lady was accused falsely of abusing her daughters by having Munchausen syndrome by proxy. The social workers dug up this case and have used it as an excuse to remove the baby from her, going to the child's nursery and taking her from there so that the grandmother would have no chance of finding out where she had been taken. For that child, it must have been a nightmare, being kidnapped and torn from everything and everyone familiar to her. Social workers do not realise that even at one year old a baby is very attached to familiar people and surroundings, and the trauma caused by such an action may be very great. Social services wanted the baby for adoption so that they could meet their targets. They cannot always do this from children in local authority homes because many are mentally or physically damaged and no one is prepared to adopt them.
	The other case is that of the Hardingham family where three children were removed from their parents. One of the boys had a metaphyseal fracture. Brittle bone disease runs in the mother's family, but because she did not have it very obviously the doctor said she could not have passed it on to her child, and the parents were accused of causing the fracture. All three children were removed, advertised for adoption on a video which the parents were forced to watch, and adopted. Even if the parents are completely cleared of all suspicion, they can never get their children back. They have just had another baby and social services are trying to steal him too. Your Lordships may have read about this case in the Mail on Sunday of 14 May and watched the BBC "Real Story" documentary broadcast on 15 May.
	There are two problems here. One is that the local authority social services appear to have been set targets for the numbers of children to get adopted. I like to think that the Government did this with the object of reducing the number of children in local authority care—a laudable enough object, until you remember that keeping children in care costs money. But the result is that in order to meet their quotas, or targets, or whatever you call them, or possibly in order to fulfil the maximum number of orders from would-be adoptive parents for children, they have resorted to virtually stealing children on the flimsiest of pretexts, pretexts which are largely manufactured by themselves with the help of tame doctors. This inflicts indescribable misery on innocent parents who love their children, and indescribable trauma on the children, who are torn from everything and everybody they know and love. Incidentally, it is usually, although not always, poor and sometimes rather simple working-class families they chose to do this to, ones who do not have the money or legal know-how to fight.
	That brings me to the second problem, which is the family courts and the secrecy under which they are always required to operate. In cases of this kind they should operate openly, without any gagging orders, so that parents accused of abuse would be able to get the help and advice as to how to defend themselves which they need so very badly. As it is they are in a heads-you-lose and tails-you-lose too situation, worthy of the worst of totalitarian regimes where justice does not exist. They are guilty until they can prove themselves innocent and they can never prove themselves innocent because they cannot even call a witness for their defence.
	I make no apology for straying somewhat from the aspects of child welfare which the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, wished to discuss. I hope the Minister will realise that there is a serious ill and injustice here which needs to be addressed urgently. Is the onus which there clearly is on local authority social services to maximise the number of children offered for adoption to be found in the Adoption Act or in regulations? How does it arise? I should also like to ask about the secrecy under which the family courts operate and the gagging orders placed on parents who have been accused of child abuse. Do they appear in primary legislation or are they set out in an order that slipped through Parliament unnoticed? How do they arise?
	I realise that I am probably bowling the noble Lord a fast ball and that he may be quite unable to give me the information today, but I should be most grateful if he would write to me and perhaps put a copy of the letter in the Library.

Lord Haskel: My Lords, I, too, would like to talk about child poverty. In 1996 and 1997, Yvette Cooper, now a Minister, persuaded the Smith Institute to run a series of seminars on work commissioned from the Centre for Longitudinal Studies. I declare an interest as chair then, and indeed now, of the Smith Institute. These longitudinal studies are fascinating. The centre has been interviewing the same people since 1958 and has followed families over generations. The point that Yvette wanted to bring out was that disadvantage was passed on from generation to generation. The presentations by Professor Heather Joshi and Professor John Bynner persuaded me not only of that, but that the seeds of this disadvantage were sown at a very early age, long before children even went to school. The long-term consequences affected children's lives in education, as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said, in health, as my noble friend Lord Giddens said, and eventually in the labour market. The research showed that the consequences of child poverty were difficult to reverse at a later stage, and that the long-term consequences have a profound effect on our society and economy.
	The reaction of the new Government was to take this much more seriously than I had dared to hope. My noble friend Lord Giddens reminded us that in March 1999 the Prime Minister said that ours was to be the generation that would end child poverty in Britain, and that he undertook to do it in 20 years. Shortly afterwards, the Chancellor put it like this:
	"Tackling child poverty . . . is not about providing either more money or better public services; it is about the necessity of both".
	Our generation can be proud about this. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Giddens on moving the Motion; I agree with him that it is a mark of a civilised society.
	The task is considerable. Nearly one in three children lived in relative income poverty in 1997, compared with one in seven in 1979. That meant that, in 1997, 4.2 million children lived in poverty. The target was to reduce that number by a quarter each five years, but the first target was missed. Of course that is disappointing, but it does not detract one iota from the fact that there are now 800,000 fewer children living in poverty in this country.
	Perhaps the target was missed because tackling child poverty is complicated. It is not associated only with worklessness—with households that have nobody in work—as there are other aspects. For instance, a quarter of poor children live in households with one or more disabled adult. My noble friend Lord Giddens told us that over half the Pakistani and Bangladeshi children live in poor households, as do 43 per cent of the children from black or other ethnic-group families. Improving the life chances of children born in poverty is not simple. Indeed, there are many other aspects not even remotely under the control of the Government. Parenting, genetics, aspirations and class all have an influence. That is why I find it a little disappointing that some complain about missed targets. But, in view of the Government's commitment, I hope that the Treasury's Comprehensive Spending Review next year will give priority to this project, so that we can be back on target by 2010.
	The Tories, of course, were sceptical about this. They had finally come round to equality of opportunity—a kind of level playing field at birth. However, the research demonstrated that the approach had to be focused on the entire family's life cycle. The Government understood that and acted through a range of services. My noble friend listed some of them. There is increased social housing, the financial inclusion fund, the Social Fund, the children's fund and children's trusts, as well as Sure Start, affordable childcare and early education. But what has attracted most attention is tax credits for children. Child tax credits were used because they target the needs and circumstances of the whole household, and not just the child. We must remember that the research demonstrated that the family was the principal means by which advantage and disadvantage was passed on to children.
	The Tories opposed the introduction of tax credits. They now justify their opposition on the basis of the errors and difficulties in the credits' administration. Yes, there are problems, and yes, there is fraud. The tax credits are more complicated than child benefits, because they are designed to adapt quickly to the changing circumstances of families. However, they deliver more money to families than the old benefits and the take-up is just as high or even higher. So I hope the Government will not be deterred by the condemnation and the criticism from working to improve the system while maintaining its flexibility. The performance will improve. It always does when introducing new IT systems, whether in the public or private sectors.
	I hope the Minister will remember that the real reason the Tories condemned the child tax benefit system was that they believed that poor families would just spend the extra money on booze and cigarettes. They were wrong. Research has shown time and again that as families move out of poverty they spend less, not more, on alcohol and tobacco.
	The Tories also argue that this is just another example of wasteful public spending. That is the politics of the last century. We have shown that the provision of public services by the state serves an economic purpose. In the 21st century virtually everyone now accepts the argument that a fair society and a strong economy go hand in hand. The dilemma for the Government is how to run these public services better to match the rising expectations of the public.
	My noble friend Lord Giddens spoke of cross-party agreement. Perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, when she comes to wind up, can tell us whether the Tory Party now accepts the argument. That is important because, if it does, the elimination of child poverty can become part of a progressive consensus in this country and not a political football; a consensus that means no future Government of any other political party will attempt to dismantle the mechanism set up to eliminate child poverty.
	To the Minister I say that we are making a difference. We are changing people's lives, and in the long run we will transform them. But that takes time and so we have to continue to build on what we have achieved. We have to get the emphasis right and make the system work better. We have to work towards consensus so that the system cannot be dismantled. I hope the Government will work hard to continue this programme and ignore the pressure to move on to the next initiative, which is always a temptation.
	If I have any criticism, it is of our failure to connect the elimination of child poverty to a Labour Government. I think it is perceived more as a crusade by celebrities and charities. I hope my noble friend will take steps to correct that, and firmly connect that aim to a Labour Government initiative, a vision of which we can all be proud.

The Earl of Listowel: My Lords, I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, for calling this important debate. I welcome the vivid vignette he produced of the Omar family. I warmly welcome the fact that the Government are ensuring that families spend no more than a couple of months in bed-and-breakfast accommodation.
	It was uplifting to hear the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, talk about the role schools can play in helping families get their children out of poverty and improving their life chances. He made a very good case for introducing the Children Act's five outcomes—staying healthy, enjoying achieving, making a contribution, staying safe and economic independence sustainability—to schools.
	The Minister is enthusiastic about the schools-within-schools programme. What struck me most recently when I heard a presentation on that programme was the way it seeks to create an intimate atmosphere within schools, with small tutorial groups, older pupils having the opportunity to coach younger pupils, and pupils getting to know their form tutor well. I think this would improve the life chances for those children; not only their academic achievement, but also their quality of life.
	It is hard for me to comment on the financial side. I have never experienced financial insecurity. However, perhaps I may comment on the services for vulnerable children and families. I would appreciate the Minister taking back this message to the Department for Education and Skills and to the Minister responsible for the review of services to looked-after children in the forthcoming Green Paper. There needs to be a more strategic focus to ensure a range of good-quality, appropriate placements for looked-after children—foster care and residential care.
	I welcome what the Government have done for looked-after children since 1997. I think particularly of the work of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, with the Children (Leaving Care) Act, the Children and Adoption Bill and the introduction of a right to advocacy for looked-after children. Those are a few of many examples of the Government's commitment to these children. I know that the Minister will accept that there was much to do. The neglect had been long lasting. There is still far to go to improve outcomes. I know that we are of the same mind.
	Those children come often from the most impoverished families. The number of children being taken into care is increasing. I am glad to see that more are being placed in kinship care than in the past. A young woman in care is two and a half times more likely to become pregnant during her teenage years than her peers outside of care. It is estimated that one in four young women leaving care are pregnant or already have a child. It is estimated that 50 per cent of young women who have left care between the ages of 18 and 24 will have had a child. I draw these figures from the review of this area of work by the Social Care Institute for Excellence.
	To tackle the cycle of poverty to which the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, referred, we need to focus continually and in a sustained way on meeting the needs of those children and their families. Crucial to that is the childcare workforce. I note the comments of the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, about these disturbing cases. There is a danger that those working with families and children from this background may be encouraged to play God. It is so easy for one to slip into the trap of using these opportunities to intervene and shape the lives of families and children and to be drawn into the "vice" of hubris. That is why such workers need to be well trained and superbly supported in order to continue to deliver an excellent service to families over many years. In many ways they are either damned if they intervene or damned if they do not. It is a difficult, challenging and—it should be—an often rewarding job which is not well enough supported.
	I welcome the registration of social workers. The Government have recently extended the diploma qualification to a graduate qualification, a qualification which countries on the Continent have had for many years. That graduate degree is very welcome. Regrettably, I sense that an overstretched, overworked workforce, often with too heavy a case load, has to a degree experienced a breakdown. Although we are now recruiting more social workers, I am concerned that many will move quickly away from frontline work to management and other areas because the culture has been so debased over time. It needs a continuing effort. I am grateful for the work of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, and the Children's Workforce Development Council for taking that forward.
	I understand that there is a shortage of 10,000 foster carers in England alone. At a presentation last year the chief inspector of the Commission for Social Care Inspection pointed out that 40 per cent of looked-after children were in inappropriate placements. I was grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, for pointing out the level of instability in placements for children in care which must arise from that. Having said that, much is being done by the Government to recruit and retain more social workers. I welcome the work being done on looking at the minimum allowances for foster carers. In Denmark foster carers are normally paid a fee for their work. Many of ours are increasingly being paid such a fee but we need to see how we can take that forward more quickly.
	On residential care, and principally children's homes for looked-after children, there has been improvement in this sector too with a high requirement for staff qualifications. Sir William Utting's reviews of safeguards in this area have produced encouraging reports. My concern here is the need for a long-term view. Good-quality children's homes are expensive to run. Hilton Dawson, a former Member of the other place and now chief executive of Shaftesbury Homes and Arethusa, a charity providing principally children's homes and with a very glowing record on the academic achievement of its children, recently said that the low occupancy rates of his charity's children's homes was jeopardising the continuing success of his charity. My understanding is that the cost of these services is proving a burden on local authorities, that they often think short term and that independent providers, while they often provide very good services, are also very flexible and respond to what is required of them. They will provide poorer quality emergency provision for children in children's homes and therefore they tend to undermine the higher quality services around them.
	That needs to be looked at carefully. I know that we will discuss it on Monday night. But at a recent meeting of the All-Party Group on Children and Young People in Care, one young man talked of his 34 different placements and a young woman in residential care talked of how so many of her peers were entering the criminal justice system, as if she felt that she was being prepared for that. I look forward to the Minister's response.

Lord Parekh: My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, on arranging the debate and initiating it with authority and compassion. As he rightly pointed out, we have in this country one of the highest rates of child poverty and child abuse. No subject could be more important. The noble Lord concentrated on child poverty. After all, since he set the question, he is free to interpret it in that way. I shall concentrate on the current provision of child welfare services, and I very much hope that I will not be failed for answering the question my way rather than his.
	I, too, begin by congratulating the Government on some excellent work in this area. The Sure Start programme has considerable success to its credit. It involves about 400,000 children and lots of local institutions with a financial outlay of about £3 billion. A couple of—or perhaps three—years ago, the Government also produced Every Child Matters. In 2004, of course, we had the Children Act. All of those collectively amount to a very forceful programme of wanting to tackle child poverty.
	While thus far congratulating the Government, I want to raise four or five issues which have been of some concern to me. The first important point is that the first report of the Sure Start national evaluation team a couple of years ago concluded that the Sure Start programme has not been as successful as it could have been, but, more importantly, that it has not been particularly beneficial to disadvantaged groups.
	A similar trend, which has been researched extensively, has been found in the United States' Head Start programme, upon which our Sure Start programme is based. That research has concluded that blacks have been least able to benefit from Head Start. In our country, teenage mothers, lone parents and the unemployed have not been able to get much out of Sure Start. It might be useful to ask why that is the case.
	Rather than going into the causes of that, because the report has something interesting to say, I want briefly to allude to the ethnic minorities. Over 50 per cent of them, mainly Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, earn less than half the average national income; and over 40 per cent of them, where two parents are working, receive means-tested support, compared to 8 per cent of other Britons. My question to the Minister is: is any ethnic monitoring of the Sure Start programme taking place? Who benefits from such programmes? Are the ethnic minorities benefiting from them in proportion to their presence in the population? Following that, what is the participation rate in the Sure Start programme among ethnic minority parents and children? Are we doing enough to engage their attention by, for example, producing literature in Asian languages or making sure that they know about the programme and are able to participate in it?
	My second point relates to the fact that the outcome of Sure Start and children's services is judged in terms of five criteria, including safety, good health, economic well-being and so on. The criteria are somewhat narrow and limited, because if you start at the base of society, as we do in the case of Sure Start, we should also be looking at whether children are sufficiently exposed to cultural diversity and are able to get on with people of different cultures and so on; and, equally importantly, whether parents drawn from different communities are able to work together and to build up mutual trust and understanding. In other words, one of the intended outcomes of Sure Start could be to promote social cohesion and to lay the foundations for a well balanced, multicultural society. In fact, it might also serve the purpose of a mild form of social engineering. In that case, there would be 400,000 children involved and the communities could be pushed in the direction of gender equality at the levels of parents and children.
	My third concern relates to the directors of children's services, as provided for in the 2004 Act. Directors of children's services are all very fine, but it is striking that swathes of services are not directly under their control—for example, mental health, community health, schools and youth justice. The question, therefore, arises as to whether the agencies in charge of those areas would be able to do their duty by children under Section 10 of the 2004 Act. What arrangements are being made to ensure that those agencies other than directors of children's services observe their duties under Section 10?
	There is something to be said for the separation of children's and education services. But there is a danger that schools are increasingly becoming autonomous—under the Education and Inspections Bill—and the academies are being encouraged to do so. If that happens, there is bound to be a reduction in children's services and we might end up with tension between our concern for children and our concern for education and autonomy.
	My fourth anxiety relates to the tendency towards bureaucratic micro-management. We saw that in Sure Start, as was pointed out by the national evaluation team and we have seen that in other cases. Take something as simple as the new initiative on healthy food in schools, which involves 23 performance standards for schools to satisfy. Inevitably, that will lead to an enormous amount of monitoring and inspection, not to mention a large amount of money being spent on them. Why not give the money to schools, and leave it to the good will and good judgment of the staff and governors to provide better meals? I have a feeling that, increasingly, we are aiming at the right goals, but do not seem to have quite worked out the administrative philosophy. In the old days, we trusted the professionals and left them alone. We increasingly found that these professionals, sometimes called producers or providers—not a description I fancy for myself as a university professor—were not doing their job. Therefore, we swung to the other extreme and began to talk about the state micro-managing by setting targets, monitoring, inspections and so on. We have seen that in the case of universities, research assessment exercises, hospitals and local authorities.
	We have swung from trusting the professionals to trusting the Government, and have increasingly realised that that other extreme is not producing results either. It is time for some kind of Hegelian synthesis, where the state can take an active role but, at the same time, provide enough space for professionals who are men of honour and can be trusted within certain limits to do the job. The Minister has an excellent reputation for finding a way out of complicated theoretical dilemmas of this kind. I hope that, rather than simply backtracking from state-imposed micro-management, or returning to the old system of trusting professional guilds, we might be able to find a better administrative philosophy, relevant not only to children but to other areas of life.
	I can easily see that there may be some unease about my fifth point, but I want to mention it. When we talk about the Sure Start programme, bringing parents and children together, we might engage the attention of faith communities more than we seem to. There is no reason why, for example, the churches, mosques and temples may not be asked to work together or individually, to bring children and parents together to achieve the goals we have in mind. After all, these institutions generally tend to have direct contact—the personal touch—with parents and children, and might therefore be able to deliver results in a more effective way than secular institutions could.

Baroness Howe of Idlicote: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, for this opportunity to share views on these issues. It is certainly right to acknowledge the considerable number of children who have been lifted out of the current definition of "poverty", so I congratulate the Government on that.
	Like, I suspect, many of your Lordships, I have spent a fair proportion of my life involved in voluntary work—in my case, mainly in London's East End, both as a chairman of the juvenile court and in local schools working with deprived families. I also served as a school governor or manager of a number of local schools. So, as your Lordships will appreciate, I need convincing neither of the importance of this whole subject nor of the long-term damage that poverty, in its broadest sense, can inflict on children's long-term life chances.
	Alas, the cycle of deprivation is as alive today as when Sir Keith Joseph, in November 1974, first uttered those words to a rather sceptical, I gather, Birmingham audience. Of course, the cycle can be broken in individual cases but, sadly, there will always be new reasons why children from previously well functioning families enter poverty, an obvious example being the relatively new phenomenon of drug-addicted parents.
	Above all, that is why we need to be realistic about the future. Child poverty is inevitably a long-term project. So, given the politician's inevitably short-term, five-year agenda, it is crucial to achieve political consensus on how these problems are to be tackled. I would like to think that we are getting closer to that point.
	The Social Exclusion Unit's report Breaking the Cycle cites five key areas for action. The area on which I want to concentrate, although they are all important, is the first of these: inequalities in education.
	Despite education being the No. 1 priority, we know from the Department for Education and Skills that half of all five year-olds have failed to achieve what it calls a "good level of development". Between one-third and one-quarter of 11 year-olds have difficulties with writing. The worst assessment of all by the National Audit Office last autumn was that most school leavers lack basic literacy and numeracy skills.
	Clearly the comprehensive education system is still failing to meet the education needs of a substantial percentage of our children. What we need to know—and I hope the Minister will be able to give the figures—is the percentage of those children assessed to be failing at each stage in the education process who fall within our broad definition of child poverty. If the education results of so-called looked-after children—in whom my noble friend Lord Listowel takes such an interest and for whom he has taken such action—the percentage will sadly be very high.
	The clue, of course, must be the proportion of five year-olds—half—who are already behind when they start compulsory full-time education. That is why it must remain the highest priority to direct whatever extra resources are possible towards very young children and their families. I agree very much with the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, that Sure Start was a brave initiative. It has been criticised for targeting deprived areas rather than families and thus not having reached a sufficiently low level of child poverty. Yet it was always going to be at least 20 years before its long-term benefits could be sensibly assessed. Above all, it involved parents, volunteers and professionals in deciding the priorities in each specific local area chosen.
	We can only hope that the children's trusts into which they have now moved will be as effective in supporting families early enough and will also fully involve parents and children in decisions about how resources are spent. I hope, too, that full use will be made of volunteers in giving practical help and encouragement. HomeStart is an excellent role model for this approach of mentoring and befriending children by individual volunteers. We should not forget either that the far healthier elderly of today, including grandparents, who have been mentioned, could play a vital role in what we all hope these plans will achieve.
	I want to stress two other aspects of education policy. The first is truancy. Once again, we need to know what percentage of those truanting—a clear area affecting life chances—fall into our definition of child poverty. Certainly, in my experience as a juvenile court chairman, they formed a high proportion of truants, many of whom had learning difficulties. The Education and Inspections Bill introduces further attempts to stem truancy, which continues to rise. There has been a degree of scepticism—we discussed the issue yesterday—about how effective the already somewhat punitive approach in the Bill is likely to be for truants and their families. But would the Minister agree that the one vital need is to tackle truancy the moment it is identified? If a truancy pattern becomes established it will be far more difficult to re-establish regular attendance. Will the Minister give the House some idea of the time gap between the discovery of the first signs of truancy and any subsequent action being taken? In my juvenile court days, sadly nothing like enough attention was paid to truancy. The inevitable result was that the vast majority of children who appeared in court for offences already had a well established truancy pattern—an ideal lifestyle for committing offences.
	I wish to applaud and further encourage the contacts that some universities, often with the help of current students, establish with schools which have bright pupils with no family history of university. I think this began under the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, in the LSE. The more these kinds of contacts are made, the more likely we are to see the individual life chances of children who would not have thought of taking education further being fulfilled. It must be a major human rights objective of the state to see that each child's potential is fulfilled. The bottom-line value to the community of minimising the number of difficult and, indeed, increasingly complex youngsters who subsequently spend their lives in and out of prison also needs to be recognised.
	The British Journal of Psychiatry says that bringing up a badly behaved child costs parents and society nearly £6,000 a year more than a well behaved one—even more than the cost for a child with severe behavioural problems. I do not understand that, but it is apparently true.
	The Howard League's research, published on 31 May of this year, on young men in prison points out that more than 1,000 young men are sent to prison at a cost of £35,000 a year each. Nearly 70 per cent of those released from prison will be reconvicted within two years, and we know that that cycle continues.
	Far more needs to be done, as is planned, by dealing with offenders through community sentences. Much more could and should be done in prison itself to meet the education and training needs of those we have previously failed to divert to acceptable behaviour. But a far more important and constructive approach surely is to spend that necessary money and resources at the earliest possible age to compensate for the poverty of these children's lives—for their benefit, yes, but equally, indeed more so, for the benefit of our whole community.

Lord Borrie: My Lords, this year is the 60th anniversary of the death of Eleanor Rathbone, an independent Member of the other place, who, in the words of her biographer, was a doughty fighter for "over-driven working mothers" and "neglected widows".
	The provision of family allowances, which we now call child benefits, payable directly into the hands of the mother had been for her a lifetime's crusade, and she was very fortunate to see Parliament enact the statute in 1945, just a few months before she died.
	It is often said that the best way to end child poverty is the continuance of full employment, so that at least one parent can hold down a reasonably well paid job. But child benefit has been a key foundation stone in the present Government's historic aim to halve and eventually, we hope, eliminate child poverty in this country. It is extremely well known that child benefit is a most successful social welfare benefit, in that it has a 98 per cent take-up. This is, no doubt, substantially because it is a universal non-means-tested benefit, with no stigma attached; it is there as of right.
	However, it may be thought that such a non-means-tested benefit test has some disadvantages in that it goes to the rich as well as the poor. Hence it has been extremely valuable that the Government not only substantially increased child benefit over the years but also introduced family and child tax credit targeted specifically at poorer families, where the money is most needed.
	The Labour Party's Commission on Social Justice, which I chaired in the early 1990s, said in 1994 that where either the mother or father is a higher-rate taxpayer—usually, certainly then, it was the father—the child benefit should be taxable as being a notional part of the father's income. The newly elected Labour Government's White Paper in 1998, A Contract for Welfare, said on page 58:
	"It must be right in principle that if Child Benefit is raised in future, then there is a case for higher rate taxpayers paying tax upon it".
	My noble friend may wish to comment on this, as she no doubt remembers it. The Minister is temporarily absent, but his lieutenant is here. What is the Government's present view?
	From money to something else: children have a right to the financial plus the emotional support of both parents, whether they live together or not. As we know, too many fathers provide no support for their children, and I shall be glad if deduction of earnings orders to collect payment from the fathers become more routine. We know in this House the problems of the Child Support Agency and its backlogs, and the campaign of Fathers for Justice, which went disgracefully too far on at least one occasion. Lone parents, as my noble friend Lord Giddens mentioned, are poorer than cohabiting parents as a general rule. Inevitably, the children of lone parents are also poorer.
	For the sake of the children a couple ought generally to avoid separating wherever possible. Yet that homily runs counter to the other, widely held belief that adults must be free to choose how they live their lives: to remain together with a spouse or partner, or not to. That must include being a single, never-married mother, and a single, separated mother. Given that such choices are permitted, the rules of the welfare system should not compel people to create or remain in some family relationship that they do not want. Social justice in this context means that children, in whatever family relationship they find themselves, should have the fullest possible opportunities for their basic needs to be met and their talents and life chances enhanced. I accept that, subject to exceptional cases, children are most likely to benefit economically and emotionally from spending their childhood with both their natural parents, who live together in reasonable harmony. Yet the welfare system must accord with how life is lived by actual people in actual circumstances, not just in what I might call the most desirable circumstances. The welfare system should not seek to comply with some Victorian ideal of moral rectitude.
	The American sociologist Charles Murray, who is, I am sure, well known to my noble friend Lord Giddens—although other noble Lords have obviously heard of him too—thinks that welfare benefits should be withdrawn from single, never-married mothers. Mr Murray believes that that would discourage them from having babies or encourage them to have their babies, if born, adopted. Such carelessness about the effect of benefit withdrawal on children is a punitive form of social engineering in which no modern community should engage.
	To coin a phrase, the interests of the child must be paramount. Of course, there are many other features of improving children's welfare besides cash benefits and, for that matter, emotional support. Several have been mentioned today: maternity leave, paternity leave, nursery provision, enhanced availability of childcare and affordable childcare. Many of those matters are being debated on the basis of a Government Bill. The Government have cause to be proud of their achievements, and my noble friend Lord Giddens should be proud to have initiated this debate.

Baroness Massey of Darwen: My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lord Giddens on securing this debate and introducing it with such skill. I should declare an interest as chair of the All-Party Group on Children.
	Child welfare facilitates social, educational and psychological well-being, as much research shows. The Government have made a real effort to improve the life chances of children. The Children Act 2004 reflected the need for agencies to work together to influence outcomes for children. I am so pleased that my noble friend Lord Borrie mentioned that the child's welfare is paramount. The Act was based on the report, Every Child Matters, drawn up in consultation with young people. The key outcomes were referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, but it is worth mentioning them again. They were: physical and mental health, emotional well-being, attention rather than neglect, education, training and recreation and making a contribution to society. Those are outcomes directly related to life chances.
	The Childcare Bill now going through Parliament states that local authorities will be under a new duty to reduce inequalities in outcomes between young children from birth to five. That Bill, together with the Work and Families Bill, takes forward proposals from the 10-year strategy for childcare, enshrining choice for parents and the best start for children.
	I shall say a word about child poverty and then discuss a key government programme, Sure Start, which, as noble Lords will know—many have referred to it—is designed to improve the life chances of children, especially those in deprived circumstances.
	It is pleasing to see in Budget 2006 a section on building a fairer society, in which measures to reduce the number of children in poverty are listed. For example, there is increasing the child element of the child tax credit, raising national insurance contributions for employer-related childcare, improving the payments into child trust fund accounts and promoting youth engagement in their communities, sport and the local media.
	However, a word of caution is highlighted in the recent Children's Rights Alliance report. It points out that those children and young people who enter the criminal justice system or are children of asylum seekers often have a very difficult time and are often severely disadvantaged. We should take note of the recent British Medical Association report on child and adolescent mental health published last week. It suggests that children from poorer backgrounds, children in care, asylum-seeker children and those who have witnessed domestic violence are all at higher risk of developing mental health problems. We must ensure that our child and adolescent mental health services are up to dealing with that problem, as well as trying to reduce the problem in the first place.
	As the Joseph Rowntree Foundation findings series for April points out:
	"Poverty in adulthood is associated with low education, lack of employment . . . and, for women, single parenthood".
	Early disadvantage is associated with all these later outcomes, as my noble friend Lord Haskel has said. However, the researchers conclude that,
	"eliminating child poverty will, on its own, have a limited role in improving outcomes for children growing up in poverty".
	Other aspects of disadvantage need to be addressed, but they can be tackled only by agencies working together at national and local level. Housing, social services, health, education and employment agencies need to support communities and the families in them so that people do not slip through the net and are unable to achieve. The new Department for Communities and Local Government has begun excellent work in integrating services and regenerating communities.
	I want to focus on welfare and achievement, using examples from Sure Start. I do so to emphasise my earlier point that welfare is not just about reducing poverty, important though that is. It is about helping communities to help families and the children in them. Government spending on Sure Start reached £1.8 billion in 2007–08. All 524 local programmes are for services to 400,000 children, including 30 per cent of those in poverty. These will become children's centres. Moreover, 852 children's centres already serve children and their families, and will increase in number so that every community will have high-quality integrated services. There have been accusations that Sure Start is not reaching the most disadvantaged families, but I found the evaluation inconclusive. One key outcome, in my view, is the fact that Sure Start programmes have been shown to improve relationships between parents and children, which is surely important in improving life chances, including educational achievement.
	The evaluation of Sure Start, published in November 2005, showed that children of non-teenage mothers had, at 36 months, higher social competence, such as independence and the ability to share, and few behavioural problems, such as disruptiveness, anxiety and hyperactivity. Such early indicators may well have a positive impact on future behaviour and achievement. From all over the country, we have examples of the work of Sure Start that will have a fundamental impact on those participating in it.
	Let me give two examples of integrated work that is benefiting families. Arbourthorne Tiddlywinks in Sheffield is a community group with a crèche and after-school care in a number of settings. It has realised its campaign to build a community and childcare centre. The management structure incorporates the voluntary sector, early-years and childcare services and health services. The building is a focal point not only for childcare but for midwife services, speech and language workers, family support staff and play development workers. Eighty-five families access services, and 109 children are involved in childcare. The local community is engaged; local people are recruited, and services are developed based on known local need. Guidance has also been issued to ensure that best practice in Sure Start becomes common practice as children's centres are rolled out nationally. A key change will be to make more use of voluntary and third-sector organisations, which are often expert at reaching and supporting socially excluded groups—a point made by my noble friend Lord Parekh.
	Let me give another example; a family from the Middle East involved in a new skills, new life programme at Brambles children's centre. The family could not return to its homeland because members of the family had been imprisoned. The mother became an important member of the learning English group at the centre, which has a crèche so that mothers can concentrate on their studies. She went on to study English to GCSE level and, after further study, was awarded an NVQ3 in childcare and education. Imagine the benefits not only to that mother but to the welfare of her own and other children by her involvement in the programme. My noble friend Lord Giddens mentioned the importance of the role of women, and I agree with him.
	Such examples show what is possible in raising the potential in communities with supportive interventions. Without interventions such as Sure Start, many families and communities would be left not only in poverty but also incapable of having the confidence and skills to rise above their circumstances. As I have maintained all along, welfare is about helping families, communities and thereby children to improve their life chances. I hope that the Minister will agree.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, the face of poverty in this country is not that of a pensioner or of a disabled person, but that of a child. Children who are born poor tend to live poor and to die poor—for poverty like wealth in this country is largely inherited, unmerited and unearned. I want to ask three questions. Who are the children? What are the risks? Where should we go?
	Two-thirds of children in a workless household live with a lone parent but, equally, one-third of them live in a two-parent family with parents who are in poor health, unskilled or from an ethnic minority. Crucially, half of all poor children live in large families of three or more children, usually with both parents. Most lone-parent families are small and their benefit tax credit levels ensure that they and their children are at or even above the poverty line at 60 per cent median earnings, which is a remarkable achievement of our Government. But that is because our benefit and tax structure is heavily weighted towards the first child, whereas most of Europe pays more to subsequent children. We do not, which is why we have large-family poverty. It may be that Europe is right.
	It is worse that even where one parent in a large couple family works, it is not always enough to spring that family out of poverty. The very families who need a second earner—the larger ethnic minority families—are those least likely to have one. Family size and ethnicity create the problem of poverty which family size and ethnicity make it almost impossible to solve. Bangladeshi women have employment rates of barely 15 per cent compared with 70 per cent of white women. While Bangladeshi and Pakistani children represent 3 per cent of the child population, they are 8 per cent of the child poor.
	Poor children are found equally in lone parent and large families. What therefore protects against poverty? The answer is work. After housing costs, if a lone parent is not in work, there is a seven in 10 chance that her child will be poor. But if she enters full-time work, that risk falls to a one in 10 chance. If a couple are not in work, there is an eight in 10 chance that they will be poor, which is higher than that of a lone parent. But if one parent moves into full-time work, the risk falls to two in 10, which is still higher than that of the lone parent. Only if the first earner is joined by a second earner does the risk fall to one in 25. So work protects, but not enough.
	The second risk factor is family size. There is control for education, employment and ethnicity, yet large families are still poorer. Why? We do not know. What is the result? If a family has one or two children, the risk factor of poverty is one in four. If it has four children, it is one in two. The risk factor doubles.
	The third factor is health. If a family has a disabled adult or child the risk of that family being in poverty is one in three. But some of that disability or illness is clearly preventable. As Alan Marsh of the Policy Studies Institute has said, we need a welfare to health programme as much as a welfare to work programme. A fifth of lone parents say that they do not work because of poor health, which is often respiratory illness. They smoke because they are poor: they are poor because they smoke. In turn, their children suffer from respiratory illness. Tackling smoking as well as depression and the poor diet linked to obesity is probably key if some of that adult disability and poor health is not to be transmitted to the child.
	The fourth issue is ethnicity. If a child is white it has a two in 10 chance of being poor; if it is Pakistani or Bangladeshi, a six in 10 chance. Discrimination may be part of it, but low skills, poor English and cultural constraints on women contribute together—disastrously, for children. Fifthly, and finally, it is about place. In the south-east one child in 10 is poor. In the north-east and north-west the figure is three in ten. In inner London it is four in 10. There is a north and south in every region and every city—wherever there is a high number of lone parents, which is itself correlated with fewer employed, there are therefore fewer fit for purpose males. Secondly, where there are fewer second earners, as in the north-east and north-west.
	We know what increases the risk of child poverty, and what factors protect against it. Do family structures protect? The poverty that scars is the poverty that persists. Re-partnering, as well as work, lifts a lone parent out of poverty, but only if she re-partners to a man in work—whereupon she will work—and the re-partnering lasts. If she does re-partner, there are huge difficulties. The poverty of income that shadows that family is replaced by poverty of well-being. Older boy children, in particular, do badly with live-in stepfathers. They are more likely to truant, do badly at school, get into trouble with the police and run away. Stepfathers are five times more likely to abuse a child than the natural father; better for those boys a lone parent home than a re-partnered home. If a lone parent has a daughter, the best protection against such poor outcomes as leaving school early and becoming pregnant is for the mother to work—a combination, I am sure, of income and role model. The best protection for the son of a lone parent is for him to remain in contact with his natural father. If, however, the mother's new boyfriend resists contact with the natural father—the "him or me" syndrome, with the mother choosing "me"—that son is in trouble.
	What follows from this? First, financial support: we should consider adding a large family premium to tax credits. Secondly, we need to continue to encourage welfare to work, both for second earners and for mothers of children aged over three. The best predictor of whether a woman is working above the fulcrum 16 hours a week is whether she had a small job in the year before. It is a ladder to experience and confidence. And what do we do? If she works more than about three hours a week, we take away every pound she earns until she hits 16 hours. So, she does not work. These are daft, man-made rules which discourage women—and, incidentally, disabled people—from going up the best possible ladder into decent waged work. We should make every hour of work pay, but we do the opposite.
	A further problem is childcare. "It is wrong to leave your child with strangers", one lone parent said to me. That guilt is assuaged only if their child gets the care that the lone parent would have given it, which means by their own mum. Yet the parent of a lone parent is often in her fifties, and often poor and in need of a wage herself. We could transform childcare, the possibility of work and the incomes of three generations—child, lone parent and grandparent—if the grandmother were eligible for childcare payments. Middle class researchers argue that grandparents' care on the estate is educationally less valuable, but they miss the holistic point. If childcare she trusts can free the mother to work, to sustain work and to be happy in work, then the huge gain to the child from swinging out of poverty far outweighs the benefits of more educationally politically correct forms of childcare.
	Next, we need more investment in welfare to health programmes if welfare to work is to succeed. Finally, we need to ensure that, wherever possible, children enjoy the support of both parents, as my noble friend Lord Borrie said. Children certainly do better in stable, two-parent families, and in married families. There is no evidence to suggest that if co-habiting families marry, they thereby become more stable. In fact, cohabitation is becoming more stable, probably because those who in the past would have married no longer do so. What is clear is that if marriage is acrimonious, it does not protect children. If it is short-lived, it probably does not protect children. If it is a remarriage, it almost certainly will not protect children. As for lone parents, it is clear that if their income is high enough, the disadvantage for the children virtually disappears.
	That brings me to child support. Computer problems aside, what is key is that fathers pay maintenance not to reduce taxes, but because fathers who pay maintenance genuinely seek and value contact and remain players in the child's life, thus offering especially to boys a model of what a committed father should be. The partnership may cease, but parenting continues.
	Lastly, as my noble friends have already said, we have come a long way and I am so proud of what we have done through the New Deal, the minimum wage, tax credits, childcare and Sure Start. In 1997 we chose a target that by definition was almost impossible to meet: to eradicate within a generation relative child poverty. That is a commitment as much about equality of outcome as it is about income. As the country gets richer, the hurdles are higher. We probably need to combine a measure of relative poverty, absolute poverty and persistent poverty, because that is the poverty that scars. But taking the cohort of children who were below the poverty line in 1997, half of that cohort is in absolute terms no longer poor. For them, we have done supremely well, but we can do better still.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford: My Lords, I join others in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, on initiating this debate and in saying how much I have enjoyed it. We have had a splendid debate and it has complemented well our extremely good debate yesterday on the Second Reading of the Education and Inspections Bill.
	In preparing for the debate, I did a little homework on the statistics mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, and others. Based on a measure of poverty as 60 per cent of the contemporary median of household income, in 1997 some 4.2 million children in this country, one in three, were living in poverty. I take on board the difficulty of meeting the moving target, but as relative incomes rise it is hard not to accept that the poverty level should also rise to some degree. While there may be a case for going for an absolute level of poverty, it is one that we would need to revise from time to time.
	The Government set themselves a series of quite ambitious targets in seeking to eradicate child poverty over 20 years, and by 2005 of moving 25 per cent of those children out of poverty. I looked at the list of initiatives that have been put in train and I have to say that they are and have been enormously impressive: child benefit has been raised in real terms; the introduction of child tax credits and the child trust fund; improving maternity pay and extending rights to maternity and paternity leave; the provisions of the Children Act 2004 and all the initiatives associated with Every Child Matters. As the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said only yesterday, all this makes for a revolution in the Government's approach to childcare. A great deal is being done in that area to raise standards, to improve quality and to train the providers. All that is very much in train, as is the provision of nursery education for 15 hours a week for three and four year-olds with the aim of extending it up to 20 hours a week and the initiatives of extended schools. I could go on and many noble Lords have mentioned a number of other initiatives. It is very impressive. That the Government missed their target of 25 per cent does not take away from the fact that in the course of the years 1998–99 through to the end of 2005, some 700,000 children were taken out of poverty. That is impressive and is to be applauded.
	We must remember however, that it still leaves well over three million children in poverty. Does that matter? I quote from the Fabian Commission report on life chances and child poverty:
	"Children born in different circumstances in the UK today have very different life chances of enjoying good health, a good level of personal development and education and a safe environment in which to live—outcomes which can have knock-on effects through later life. Perhaps most fundamentally, not every child is given the chance to flourish and enjoy a secure and happy childhood".
	The report then goes on to say that children from low income, low socio-economic status homes, often from ethnic backgrounds and sometimes with disabilities, are particularly at risk of living in poverty. This is very much the picture painted by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis. The report states that,
	"on average, these social groups experience systematically worse outcomes. We believe this offends against the fundamental principles of fairness".
	We on these Benches agree and I suspect that is true of all sides of the House.
	We are 100 per cent behind the Government in their war on poverty, although on occasions we would perhaps choose to follow slightly different routes. I pick up a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, in questioning to some extent the outcomes of some of these initiatives. Many of us were shocked by the evaluation of the Sure Start initiative, because we all felt in our guts that it was absolutely the right initiative. Yet here it was, showing that it was not reaching those it was targeting.
	The failure of child tax credits also demonstrates that there are perhaps times when initiatives become too tied up in their own initiatives. I do not know whether anyone else feels that we have so many strategies and strategy groups, and so many of our front-line professionals tied up in writing strategies for the groups and then monitoring those strategies, that perhaps we have created too complicated a network of initiatives. Perhaps some of these tax credit systems are too complicated and the simpler systems such as child benefit and the old family allowances paid universally to everybody but perhaps clawed back through the tax system in one form or another might be a better way to go. I applaud the initiative suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, that perhaps we ought to be thinking of paying more for later children in larger families. Perhaps we ought to be looking at simpler initiatives rather than trying to micro-manage quite so hard.
	I finish by talking about education—the area I know best. The fact that one child in five leaves primary school unable to read and write properly is an indictment of our education system. Those children then go on to fail through secondary school. If children cannot read and write when they are 11 they have no chance of coping with the curriculum in our secondary schools today, wrong though I think that curriculum is. One of our problems is that it is, on the whole, a curriculum set for the top 30 to 35 per cent of the intelligence cohort. We have many children who are not motivated—who are in fact positively disincentivised by the secondary school curriculum that we offer them. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said that the chance of learning by doing has more or less gone out of the window; we expect all the children to learn by sitting at their desks and being told didactically what is done. Many children react badly to that. Doing something about our secondary school curriculum—making it more appropriate for most of the children who go through secondary schools—is important.
	I am a governor of one of the primary schools in Guildford; it happens to serve one of the more disadvantaged areas. I am the foundation-stage governor so I have sat in on the class of the rising fours to fives, the reception class. From talking with the teacher, it is clear that there is an enormous range of capability among the 25 children. Some are on the verge of reading and have good communication skills, but others find it difficult even to talk, because no one has talked to them very much at home. Roughly speaking, the teacher could say to me that five of them would be difficult kids to cope with later. One of the points that I need to make is that most teachers know, by the time the children are seven, which ones will find it difficult to read and write when they are 11. If we were Scandinavian, we would be pouring resources in to make sure that those pupils could read and write at 11.
	Sadly, often the reasons why children do not read and write reflect their turbulent and difficult lives outside school. One little boy was aggressive and rude to everybody. When the teacher managed to get him on one side to try to find out why, it was because Mum had a new boyfriend and, basically, no one loved him. Such things affect those kids. It is important that we carry through the recommendation in the Steer report that every school has a parent and pupil support worker. Teachers with 25 kids to cope with, five of whom may be difficult to manage even with teaching assistants, cannot give the time and attention that some of the kids need. Having a school counsellor is vital to enable schools to cope with such children and to identify those who need special help. Frankly, then we need to target that help to do everything that we can to make sure that those children read and write by the time that they are 11. That is my message this afternoon if we want to improve the life chances of many of those children in poverty.

Baroness Morris of Bolton: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, for giving us the opportunity to debate this crucial topic. There is no doubt that he makes us all think and question our assumptions, and shakes us out of our comfort zones. That is no bad thing. It has been an excellent debate. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp of Guildford, I have enjoyed it. I never cease to be amazed by your Lordships' House: rapping Shakespeare is not something that I expected in today's debate, yet my noble friend Lord Lucas, in his excellent speech, was right to talk about the poverty of aspiration and the role that schools can play in opening children's eyes to the opportunities available and equipping them to seize those opportunities.
	The noble Lady, Lady Saltoun of Abernethy, is not alone in her fears and concerns on adoption and children in care. As always, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, is right to question the Government on placements and the lack of foster carers. The noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, is again right to point out the problems of mental health in so many of our looked-after children. The mention of overdriven working mothers by the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, struck a chord, and I agreed with much that he said on parents, a subject to which I shall return.
	No one in your Lordships' House, whatever our political allegiance, will approach government policy for children with anything other than good will and the hope that it will succeed. Many will rightly and properly criticise those policies, and we on these Benches will seek alternative, more effective policies, but none will disagree with the ultimate objective of giving our children their best possible chance from the very beginning of their lives and as they grow to adulthood. The Aashas and Sufias deserve no less. These children will grow together and form the society of a new generation. We should be aware, as the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, said, that disadvantage is passed on from generation to generation, or, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis of Heigham, so succinctly put it, poverty is inherited, unmerited and unearned.
	The noble Lord, Lord Haskel, threw down the gauntlet to ask whether we would dismantle the mechanisms set up to tackle child poverty, and the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, reminded us that it was Keith Joseph who first talked about breaking the cycle of deprivation. We have recently pledged our commitment to the target to reduce child poverty, and it was no idle pledge. Our policies will be based on the findings of our commissions, but whatever our policies, they must be robust and fit for purpose.
	Our children's experiences now—the nurture, love and care they receive, their practical welfare, their early and later education, the emotional and financial security of their families in all their diversity—will form the adults and, in turn, the parents of another generation. Those adults will become our nation's human wealth, the core wealth of our society. They will grow into a world where an educated population and workforce do not simply represent a social good, but a necessity for economic success and survival. Today's policies and decisions on child welfare could not be more important for their future and our country's future.
	This is a vast and complex subject. I do not think I had realised quite how vast it was until I began my research for this debate. Because it is so wide-ranging I had a dilemma about how best to tackle it in such a short debate. I decided to look at two areas where government policy, the thinking behind it and the way it is administered have a direct link on raising children out of poverty and improving their general life chances. I shall then take a quick look at other areas that may be more innovative.
	First I shall look at the Child Support Agency. We currently have 800,000 children who do not have contact with one of their parents, usually their father. Undoubtedly, children have a better chance in life if they have two parents looking out for them, offering them love and support. Sadly relations between adults break down, but, as we said many times during the course of the Children and Adoption Bill, where safety is not an issue, the best parent for a child is both parents. That is why we believe strongly in the legal presumption of co-parenting. We argued passionately for the right of both parents to have reasonable access to their children, and for their child to have reasonable access to both of them and their extended family.
	That matters for so many reasons, but particularly for two very important ones: the emotional stability provided, and financial stability. It must be right that all children should be supported by both parents. I think we can all agree that no one is happy with the way the CSA has performed the task of getting money from absent parents to the parent with care. I accept that the system was far from perfect when we were in government.
	I cannot help thinking, however, that if parents were obliged to maintain some link for the sake of their children, financial problems might not be quite so bad. In the Times on 27 January 2004 there was an interview with David Levy, the president of the United States Children's Rights Council, who was over here to discuss shared parenting. He said that its benefits were not just in fewer costly disputes in court, but in increased child support payments. Consensus Bureau statistics showed that fathers with shared parenting rights paid twice the amount of fathers with no contact. I so agreed with the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, on this issue.
	During a debate on this subject earlier in the year I asked the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, if Sir David Henshaw would look at this in his review of the CSA. I hope he will, and I hope he will take the findings from America very seriously. That would help children who are often financially disadvantaged when their parents go their separate ways, but what will help children in general is to ensure that their parents have proper relationship guidance. As my right honourable friend David Cameron said on Tuesday in a speech to the National Family and Parenting Institute:
	"When we think of family policy, we rightly focus much attention on the relationship between parent and child. But the truth is that often the best way of improving the parent child relationship is to improve the couple relationship".
	As he points out, although the state cannot deliver that, society has a strong interest in strengthening couples' relationships, something he sees being delivered by community and voluntary organisations.
	The second area I should like to focus on is Sure Start and childcare. We have consistently welcomed the support given through Sure Start to some of our most disadvantaged children and families. The Government were absolutely right to make childcare and children's services a priority. The debate is not over whether Sure Start or better, wider childcare is delivered but how to deliver it.
	During the debates on the Childcare Bill we raised concerns which echo those of Tony Blair when he said,
	"When we started Sure Start I was always a bit sceptical that in the end we could do this . . . there was an idea it would lift all boats on a rising tide. It has not worked like that".
	The noble Lord, Lord Parekh, reminded us that the first evaluation of Sure Start reported that it had not been particularly beneficial to the disadvantaged. Sure Start is starting to remind me a little of that line in the film, "Field of Dreams":
	"If we build it they will come".
	But if parents prefer to use the informal care, about which the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, spoke, as we know that most of them do, or if they have to struggle through a system of complicated tax credits, they will not come. The Green Budget 2006 of the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that overpayments and complexity are intrinsic features of the system and that recent changes to cure overpayment problems have increased complexity and the costs of compliance to recipients. What is more, the full impact of the changes will not be clear until 2009. Therefore we are left with a system that does not work, where most take up is from middle income and not poor families, and where we shall not see how bad it is for three years; and by then the Government will have run out of room to change them.
	Perhaps the most serious concern I have with Sure Start is its potential to entrench immobility by locking in pockets of dependence on state provision rather than using market forces to generate service improvements. We need a great focus on improving social mobility which, according to a report in 2005 by the Sutton Trust, is falling in Great Britain.
	I do not for one minute think that the Government's heart is not in the right place but the battle to lift millions of children out of poverty will not be won with any great government schemes. It will not be won by the Government's heavy-handed top-down approach which can all too often act as a disincentive. These problems will be best tackled through locally based solutions, engaging communities and the voluntary sector and by looking after our neighbour. This is where the innovation and drive will come from. It will come from people like Camila Batmanghelidjh at Kids Company who do more to alleviate the suffering—emotional and material—of vulnerable children than abstract government agencies; and who through her work is starting to rebuild small community action where the children whom she helped are now helping others. Those are the areas that we are looking at through our commission on social justice.
	When in 1999 Tony Blair pledged to eradicate child poverty by 2020 he may even have thought that he would still be Prime Minister those 21 years later. It will be for others, and will require different policies, if that aspiration is to be met. In a powerful and thoughtful speech to the Child Poverty Action Group in June last year my honourable friend David Willetts said,
	"The government's figures show that despite all their best efforts they haven't had much success in tackling the problems of persistent poverty. It is a problem of successive governments. It is relatively easy to spend a lot of money to boost the income of the poorest people. But it is much harder to open up British Society so that people genuinely feel that it is open, meritocratic and mobile".
	That is the challenge we all face.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, for those of us in this House concerned with education and children's services, your Lordships' House is coming to resemble the Committee of Public Safety, which adjourns briefly overnight before regrouping in the morning to resume its deliberations. We had brief respite over the weekend and then regrouped on the Childcare Bill and the noble Earl's Question on children's homes. I take that as a great tribute to the work of this House: we put right at the centre of our activities the welfare of children and how we can advance it still further. We on this side of the House are immensely proud of our achievements since 1997 in this respect. I recognise the compliments paid across the House to the achievements that we have taken forward together in the past 10 years.
	We are greatly indebted to my noble friend Lord Giddens not only for opening the debate but, if I may say so as one who plays some part in the wider policy debate outside this House, for laying the grounds for the philosophy of our aim in creating what he calls a new frontier for the welfare state in the development of children's and under-five services. There is no greater tribute to our success than, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said, the fact that the Conservative Party is working on its own commission on social justice. My noble friend Lord Borrie, who brilliantly chaired our commission on social justice more than 10 years ago, will be the first to acknowledge its importance in laying the groundwork for our election planning and putting in place our whole framework of thinking for coming back into government. I hope that it does not have a similar effect on the noble Baroness's party, but its adoption of that approach says a great deal for how we are forging what we on this side of the House call a progressive consensus on these issues.
	I recognise that the Liberal Democrats have always placed these issues at the centre of their aims. They are very much in the social liberal tradition, which played such an important part in putting these issues at the centre of political debate over a century ago. A century has passed since the election of the great Liberal Government of 1906, who did as much as the Labour Government of 1945 in putting these issues at the centre of political debate. I refer to Eleanor Rathbone and others from that tradition. So what we are achieving philosophically is as important as what we have achieved practically, and, of course, the one has led to the other.
	Why do we give child welfare such priority? We do so because it is socially just, but also, of course, because it is economically essential. We know that the social costs of poverty are high. We also know that we will be able to achieve our economic goals as a nation only if we enable every child to develop their skills and talents.
	We put this at the forefront of our programme at the outset of this Government. The 1997 Labour Party manifesto highlighted our mission to promote work incentives, reduce poverty and welfare dependency, and strengthen community and family life, and it made clear that the best way to tackle poverty is to help people into jobs—real jobs. As my noble friend Lady Hollis said, that is not in all cases an absolute guarantee that people will be able to lift themselves and their families out of poverty, but it is by far the best and most effective policy that we have.
	Our commitment has been shown most graphically of all by the Prime Minister's groundbreaking pledge in 1999 to halve child poverty by 2010, and eradicate it, within a generation, by 2020. That goal would have been regarded as unthinkable even a few years earlier and was dismissed at the time as overambitious. My noble friend Lord Haskel said that it constituted taking the eradication of child poverty much more seriously than he dared to hope. Normally the Government are accused of not being bold enough in these areas and it is always good to know that we have been bolder than some of my noble friends had thought possible.
	To achieve these goals we have taken forward four interrelated policy agendas: first, the creation of an active welfare system that positively helps benefit recipients return to the labour market and makes work pay; secondly, policies to make work more family-friendly; thirdly, a transformation in early years services, with far better universal services but also better targeted services and specialist help for those with additional needs; and, fourthly, a wholly new and stronger focus on raising educational standards and tackling the attainment gap for less advantaged children. I shall say a few words about each of these four policy areas, saying what we have done and what more we intend to do.
	I completely understand the gravity of the issues that the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun of Abernethy, raised. I shall write to her on them. They are very serious matters, some of which I believe are sub judice, so I may need to tread carefully. It is absolutely essential that the state acts with great sensitivity in any issues concerning the relationship of children and their parents, even where it believes abuse is involved. I do not think that anybody would question the seriousness of the noble Lady's concerns but it is not appropriate for me to comment this afternoon on the specific cases that she raised.
	First, on active welfare and making work pay, as my noble friend Lady Hollis, said, to lift people out of poverty and give them the means to prosper we need to ensure that everyone who can work is able to do so and has the help that they need to get into work. That is why the Government's approach has not been only about redistribution, but has at its foundation promoting work as the best route out of poverty. This is why we established the national minimum wage and tax credits to make work pay; it is why we invested in Jobcentre Plus and the New Deal to help people find work; and it is why we expanded childcare provision so that parents can combine work and childcare to a degree that was often impossible before—particularly if they did not have those extended family networks that my noble friend talked about so eloquently.
	On each front we have made good progress. There are more people in jobs than ever before—some 2.5 million more than in 1997—and the number on benefit has fallen by around one million. The lone parent employment rate has increased from 46 per cent in 1997 to over 56 per cent in spring 2005. We have lifted thousands out of poverty, with 800,000 fewer children in low-income households in 2004–05 than in 1997, and cut the number of children living in workless households by nearly 370,000.
	Universal child benefit for the first child has increased by over 25 per cent in real terms since 1997. I should tell my noble friend Lord Borrie that we have no plans to tax child benefit; we regard it as an essential contributor to the progressive universalism that binds us all into the cause of ensuring proper provision for children, and an acceptance of the importance of the welfare state. But we have also targeted financial support at low-income families. Tax credits are benefiting around six million families and 10 million children. By October this year, as a result of our reforms of tax and benefits, families with children will be on average some £1,500 a year better off in real terms than in 1997, and the poorest fifth of them will be on average £3,400 per year better off. So we have made substantial progress in direct support for families.
	The second theme is making work family-friendly. The House has debated work/life balance at some length, so perhaps I may be telegraphic in summarising the elements that apply particularly to child welfare. We have extended paid maternity leave from 14 to 26 weeks, with the right to a further 26 weeks of additional unpaid leave for all women who have worked for their employer for long enough. We have also significantly increased statutory maternity pay, which has increased by 70 per cent, from £60 a week in 2001 to £109 a week as of this April—the largest increase since the introduction of maternity allowances in 1948. We also introduced in 1999 13 weeks' unpaid parental leave for all parents of children up to age six; and in 2003 we established two new legal entitlements: paid paternity leave and a legal right for parents of children under six to request flexible working arrangements. All those are of particular benefit to children from less-well-off families, for whom those absolute sums mean much more.
	Thirdly, the Government have presided over an unprecedented expansion in provision for under-fives and their families. It is in this area, above all others, that we talk about a new frontier of the welfare state. Since 1997, we have made free nursery education universally available for three and four year-olds. I would like to think that we are now a substantial part of the way to the sort of provision of services for under-fives that the Scandinavians have taken for granted for a generation, and, which evidence unambiguously shows, helps families with children to prosper. Virtually all four year-olds and 96 per cent of three year-olds now take up the universal entitlement, and provision has increased from 33 to 38 weeks.
	Childcare places have also increased significantly since 1997. There have been some 617,000 net additional places since then, and I never tire of saying to the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, that this was achieved substantially in collaboration with the private and voluntary sectors, which play a crucial role in this area. We do not in any way see this as a nationalisation of the childcare sector. We have provided substantial help for childcare costs through the childcare element of the working tax credit, which now benefits some 374,000 lower-income and middle-income families.
	However, as well as expanding these universal services, which we intend to expand further still, we have focused particularly on extending provision in disadvantaged areas and to disadvantaged groups. Our Every Child Matters vision is that each child should receive the individual support they need to be healthy, stay safe, enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution and enjoy economic well-being, as set out in the Children Act 2004.
	There has been near-universal support for what we have sought to do in this area, particularly by the development of Sure Start. It was particularly mentioned by my noble friends Lady Massey and Lord Parekh but many others have personal acquaintance with it. The noble Baronesses, Lady Sharp and Lady Howe, talked from close personal knowledge of what is going on in this area, and I was glad that they welcomed the developments. Those are not just about Sure Start but about the development of children's centres, which are being systematically attached to primary schools nationwide. That is transforming the mission of primary schools and making it much easier to deal with the acute social difficulties with which they must contend, as set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp.
	My noble friend Lord Parekh asked about ethnic monitoring and participation in Sure Start. I see he is not in his place, but I am not able to offer him figures today. We have, however, commissioned a study of these issues as part of the Sure Start national evaluation, which will look specifically at the work programmes we are doing to reach and engage with minority-ethnic families. The draft report is due in September or October, with a final report by the end of the year; I will see that it is placed in the Library and made publicly available.
	The 500 existing Sure Start centres are the models for our new flagship Sure Start children's centres, of which we now have more than 850, with plans for thousands nationwide. My response to the concern of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, about the impact on mobility is that the faster these become universally available services, the lower will be the perception of impediment to mobility in access to children's centres. To ensure good quality the Government have introduced the foundation stage and day-care standards, and strengthened the childcare and early years workforce.
	Fourthly, on educational standards, we can resume the debate we finished at 10.30 pm last night. I speak not only as a schools Minister but as somebody who has sought to engage with the evidence. There is nothing more important than effective education in opening up opportunity and ensuring the capacity of children to thrive now and in later life. I take effective education to start from age three not age five, as was generally the case 10 years ago. No theme was stronger in yesterday's debate than our continued challenge to overcome poor rates of attainment in deprived communities.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, is surely right that there is an investment aspect. There has been a huge increase not only in the number of teachers in primary schools, but in the number of teaching assistants there; it has more than doubled over the past 10 years. I do not know the precise situation in the school to which the noble Baroness refers, so I speak with some hesitation. In most schools I now visit, however, there is not only a teacher but also an assistant in most classes. That has significantly transformed the capacity of primary schools to tackle the sort of issues the noble Baroness was talking about. Many assistants focus especially on children who are falling behind in literacy and numeracy, which are essential skills.
	I agree that there is a resources aspect, but there is also, as I think the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, would recognise, a quality of teaching aspect. We have consistently sought since 1997 to promote best practice in collaboration with the profession, particularly in the early teaching of reading, to focus the attention of teachers and head teachers on this important subject, and to bring best professional practice to bear. That led to the introduction of the national literacy and numeracy strategies in 1998, with guidance to schools on how they could best prepare their teachers for the important task of teaching children to read. It has led to the development of all the support systems in place through those strategies, with regional advisers and those who work closely with head teachers on this. Most recently, it has been taken forward by Jim Rose in his report, which seeks to make best practice in phonics teaching more widely available to schools.
	My own belief is that it is an issue both of resources and of best practice. Those who say that it can all be left to catch up later in the primary years downplay the significant progress that can be made, including in deprived areas, if there is a strong focus from the first days in primary schools on teaching children to read effectively using the best methods available. However, primary schools are not simply about the basics. We need to get the basics right but we have so much else to do in those schools too.
	The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, in an effective speech, talked about extended schools and made the point—which is surely right—that the reason many parents choose to go private has to do not with the quality of the basic teaching and the facilities available in state schools but the range of activities available; in particular, the availability of after-school activities and extended activities including sports, the arts, cultural activities, places to go, clubs and so on. I entirely agree with him that establishing a similar culture of extended schools in the state system is an urgent imperative that we are seeking to take forward. We now have more than 1,500 schools providing access to extended services beyond those simply available in the school day. It is a high priority for us and we are seeking to make that an entitlement in all schools in the years ahead. That includes childcare, study support activities, parenting support, specialist services, sporting activities, cultural activities and clubs.
	More young people are also staying on after the age of 16. The who do so the more we are likely to tackle the dreadful problem of teenage pregnancy to which the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, referred, and a sense of disengagement from a trajectory of achievements in education and in society at large, which can too often lead to the problems that we have in terms of teenage pregnancy and the huge pressures to which young people are subjected. But for those who do alas still leave the education system without the skills that they need to be able to get into work, it is also essential that we have effective adult programmes that help them; hence the importance that we have been giving to adult literacy programmes, where we have made a huge investment through our Skills for Life strategy. Last year, for example, 750,000 adults achieved a first literacy, language or numeracy qualification thanks to that Skills for Life programme, which has an important role to play in tackling the problems of inequality and child poverty.
	I was asked a large number of specific questions. I cannot deal with them all, but let me try to run through a few before I have to stop. The noble Baroness asked about the Child Support Agency. As she will know, in February my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions announced an operational improvement plan to improve the agency's performance and a redesign of child support led by Sir David Henshaw. Sir David has been asked to report back to the Secretary of State by the Summer Recess but we have also announced that we will invest £120 million over three years with some £30 million of that for debt collection by external organisations; and the agency proposes to employ additional support from the private sector in maintaining clerical cases until they can be re-established on the new computer system, so allowing agency people currently working on those cases to focus on new schemes and new casework to get up the rate of recruitment of funds, which is so important.
	My noble friend Lord Parekh asked about Every Child Matters outcomes and why they do not specifically include diversity and social cohesion factors. While it is the case that the five outcomes may not be explicitly couched in terms of addressing issues of equality and diversity, they will not be delivered unless we tackle the impacts of race, sex and gender in each of those five areas; for instance, ethnic differences in the number of young people not in education, employment or training are important to understanding policy developments in this area. That also applies in schools where for the past two years we have been publishing ethnic performance data by school, which was a big decision to take because there was some opposition to doing so before. I can say as a Minister that that has played a big part in concentrating the minds of school leaders and local authorities on achievement by ethnic group and not simply on wider measures of deprivation.
	The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and my noble friend Lord Giddens asked about measures of absolute poverty and relative poverty. There are plans for a three-part target, which will bring together targets on relative poverty, absolute poverty and material deprivation. So there will be some recognition of absolute measures. We still think that it is essential to focus especially on a relative poverty target because we believe every child should share in the increased prosperity of our country in the years ahead.
	My noble friend Lady Hollis made very strong points about family size. She asked whether it would be within the realm of the possible to add a large family premium to tax credits. My noble friend has been closer to these issues than I, and I think she will know that tax credits recognise, to some extent, the size of families. So there is some additional help. We are seeking to review our anti-poverty strategy, which will be published in the autumn when these issues are considered. That is also the case on her points about making work pay for those working from three to 16 hours.
	I think that my noble friend knows our policy on kinship care and grandparents. I know she has expressed very strong views on how it should be changed. I will bring those to the attention of my right honourable friend. My noble friend knows that our policy is not one of being favourable to, as we see it, commercialising family arrangements. But she made powerful points and I will bring those to the attention of my right honourable friend.
	The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, made very strong points about looked-after children. As he knows, my right honourable friend the Minister for Children is working on a Green Paper on those issues, and we will make proposals later this year.
	It remains for me to thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this very important debate, which has focused the attention of the House on one of the biggest issues facing the country; that is, the eradication of child poverty.

Lord Giddens: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, which has been incisive, informed and—dare I say it?—entertaining. In the "keeping noble Lords awake" stakes it seems to have performed very well.
	The prime purpose of social policy today should be to invest in children. This is not simply a moral principle; it is a social and economic principle, mainly because the risks in our society have changed. Older people are more affluent relative to what they were and younger people and women bear a much greater proportion of the burden of poverty.
	I thank all noble Lords who have commented on education. I will not try to respond to the points they have made, but I reaffirm that whatever one does at later stages of the education system, the evidence shows that inequalities are laid down very early in life. Even by the age of two to two and a half, cognitive differences exist between children from deprived backgrounds and those from more affluent backgrounds, even when early tests show that there are no such differences initially.
	Comments were made about Sure Start and Head Start. I have looked at the evidence on that and I think that it is more ambiguous than some people said. Head Start has been supported by a range of American studies. I am a supporter of these programmes. It is important to do what the Government are doing—that is, to monitor the effects of social policy and not just take them for granted. It is important that they are monitored. Sometimes you will find that they are insufficient and need changing.
	Finally, as my noble friend Lord Haskel emphasised, it is important to affirm the principle of tax credits. Tax credits are important. They have been a major source of levering both adults and children out of poverty. They do that and they have an important economic effect in that they contribute to the economy because they get people into work. Furthermore, they do not have the stigma that upfront benefits tend to assume. So, even though there have been difficulties with them, I think that their role should be affirmed. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Nepal

The Earl of Sandwich: rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what is their assessment of the prospects for peace and parliamentary democracy in Nepal.
	My Lords, I am grateful for this opportunity to speak about Nepal at a critical time in its history. It is encouraging to see in his place the Minister who has to look in many other directions; I take this as a sign that Her Majesty's Government are now giving Nepal more prominence that it usually gets on Mercator's projection. This is not a faraway mountain kingdom overlooking India, famous for its warriors and attracting our trekkers and tourists. It is a proud, diverse nation of about 28 million people that deserves much more from us in the way of assistance, diplomacy, and media and parliamentary time.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Northover, and I were there for five days in March with an all-party group led by Sir John Stanley, just before the popular uprising which, to everyone's relief, ended King Gyanendra's direct rule. I look forward to her analysis, and to the expert advice of my other noble friends.
	We all recognise that the people suffered a form of tyranny under King Gyanendra from which they were right to break free. Yet we cannot dismiss the king's seizure of power purely as an act of folly or personal aggrandisement. Nepal had seen a succession of prime ministers and governments incapable of containing the Maoists, who continue to enjoy a stranglehold over most of the country. It is easy to criticise a king who arrived in a crisis and was not born to rule. He failed to gain the respect earned by his brother not just because of his inexperience and incapacity but because of the enormous odds against his success. As our own embassy well knows, his direct rule has been a useful distraction from the more fundamental corruption inside government and the political parties, which are all still dominated by their leaders and central committees, and which urgently need internal reform. The focus must now be on the ability of the Seven Party Alliance under Mr Koirala to reclaim democracy and anticipate the intentions of the Maoists. The parties must maintain their unity in the absence of parliament and during the critical period leading up to the elections for a new constituent assembly.
	The SPA has taken a number of commendably bold steps forward, starting with the revised memorandum of understanding with the Maoists, the April uprising itself, and culminating in a series of talks bringing the Maoists into the centre and eventually into government. The Prime Minister's visit to India caused a stir, but he has shown considerable leadership given his state of health and uncertain mandate. His Friday summit with Chairman Prachanda has raised hopes of a peaceful transition, although intellectually there is a lot of ground to cover between the old parties and the new—the Maoists who seem to have hogged the limelight.
	On the ground, there is a lot of confusion. The Maoist threat remains in the provinces, with abductions and extortion still being reported by INSEC, the respected human rights agency. Rallies inside and outside the valley, not surprisingly after years of guerrilla war, show resentment at the continuing power of the establishment. The retention of the monarchy, even in a ceremonial form, will be a sticking point for the Maoists, for whom a republic is not just rhetoric. The decision of the CPN-UML, led by Mr M K Nepal and antis, such as Mr Bam Dev Gautum, will be critical. Yet it should not be at the top of the agenda while there is a more urgent need for a durable ceasefire, new elections, reform of the army and civil service, and a peaceful transition to a government which genuinely meets the people's needs and secures international assistance. We know from experience that decommissioning dependent on the degree of power-sharing can take many years, even with international supervision.
	The best hope for national unity, and for an administration which will soon include the Maoists, is a campaign for a more equal society in which poverty reduction becomes the most urgent priority. Nearly 30 per cent of the population live below the poverty line and primary healthcare and education, especially for girls, are desperately needed in rural areas. There are still around 1.5 million child labourers, and bonded labour is a huge problem. As in India, most of the poor are from the lowest castes, who represent about 22 per cent of the total population. Parliament made a start on 4 June with a historic declaration tabled by the CPN-UML outlawing discrimination against Dalits and promising more educational opportunities. This progressive move towards equality and assistance to the poorest must not get lost in the scramble for power and the rise of a new bureaucracy.
	As Matthew Kahane, the UN resident representative, recently put it:
	"If Nepal is able to hold a constituent assembly process that is genuinely inclusive—with appropriate representation for women, Dalits, ethnic and other disadvantaged groups—the country can begin the structural transformation that will be needed to reverse the historical inequalities at the heart of the conflict".
	I recognise that that is a tall order against a background of extreme poverty and official neglect, but international agencies have brought a lot of experience. Our own DfID has built up a strong £32 million programme, part of which we visited at Biratnaga.
	I hope that the Minister will confirm that all those development projects can now proceed, depending on improved security. I know that the British Gurkha programme remains intact, but its welfare service has been severely cut. The UK also has relevant human rights experience through the Global Conflict Prevention Pool, as the Minister said last week. That will presumably be of use during the current negotiations and I expect that the Minister will have more detail.
	There were unspeakable crimes on both sides during the civil war and the people are already demanding justice for the victims of atrocities by both the Maoists and the army. The army is tentatively conducting its own investigations, such as that into the disappearance of 49 the detainees in the Bhairavnath battalion case. The UN and Nepali human rights agencies have been active throughout the crisis. The High Commission for Human Rights, under Ian Martin, once formally invited—there is some doubt even now about that—will play a valuable part in the peace process. With UK and EU encouragement, it could very soon back up the process of army reform and Maoist demobilisation, with the latter apparently willing to place their weapons under international supervision.
	Can the Minister tell us whether the US embassy has now softened its position and confirm that the Indian Government, which has always been uneasy about UN involvement, is now more receptive to international intervention? I want the UK to take a more active role, but I congratulate our embassy, led by Keith Bloomfield, on its calming influence and positive background noise throughout the recent troubles. I look forward to meeting his successor, Andrew Hall, next week.
	With the king playing a purely formal role, the monarchy as an institution must surely become once again a force for stability. His Majesty the late King Birendra, whom I knew and greatly admired, accepted a new constitutional status in 1990 and is still remembered with affection even by some of the younger radical leaders. I see no reason why the present king should not come to accept a similar role. However, it is not for outsiders to influence that; it will all be in the hands of the new constituent assembly and the popular will.
	The Nepalese people have shown a remarkable characteristic tolerance and restraint throughout the recent violence and it is to be hoped that those great qualities will bring them through the coming period. There is an urgent need for peace and economic recovery. However, none of us should underestimate the difficulties that lie ahead.
	In summary, I hope that Her Majesty's Government will give even more priority to Nepal now that there is a real chance of multi-party democracy working towards better governance. Disillusionment can set in so easily and the worst outcome would be for the international community to point the finger at the earliest sign of failure. There will be mistakes and there will be suspicion. Our long friendship and mutual interests should enable our Government to take a more prominent role in assisting the process of reconciliation and the formation of a genuinely representative new Government.

Lord Avebury: My Lords, I warmly congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, on securing this timely debate on the situation in Nepal, a country which, as he says, deserves more attention than the House has given it in the past. It will probably receive more attention as a result of the noble Earl having raised the matter this afternoon, which will improve prospects for making progress, with the help of the international community, towards an enduring peace and democracy.
	The UK has close ties with Nepal that go back 200 years to before our first enlistment of Gurkha soldiers under the British flag in 1817. It must be remembered that they fought heroically in the two world wars and that the Nepalese people came to our aid morally and materially when our backs were to the wall at Dunkirk. It is therefore with deep concern that the people of this country have witnessed the agony of Nepal in recent years, but with some hope that the worst is over and that our Government will repay the debt that we owe the Nepalese people and help them towards their goal of peace and democracy.
	The ceasefire agreed between the Government and the Maoists on 24 April, a large share of the credit for which must go to Mr Ian Martin, the representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, was not only a positive step, as the secretary-general said at the time, but the start of a process that has acquired momentum, leading to the internationally supervised elections some time in 2007, when the voters will decide, as the noble Earl said, what sort of government they want. Yes, there have been violations of the ceasefire on both sides, but they have not been serious enough to derail the political process and the political will for a genuine and robust democracy.
	Now, the Seven-Party Alliance and the Maoists have jointly agreed to invite the UN to monitor both the ceasefire and the code of conduct, which was agreed last month. This initiative has the blessing of neighbouring India. Will the Minister tell us when the Security Council is likely to consider this, and whether it will be part of the wider role envisaged by Mr Matthew Kahane, the UN resident representative and humanitarian co-ordinator in Nepal? He was quoted yesterday as referring to a multi-agency UN programme that might involve: UNICEF, in rehabilitating child soldiers; the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, which of course already has a presence there; the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, to provide technical help on the ceasefire; and agencies concerned with the destruction of surplus weapons and advising on methodologies for the elections next year. That sounds like a very substantial programme, although Mr Kahane added that it would not need a large number of resident UN personnel. He suggested for comparison that it would probably need fewer than the UN had in Tajikistan, where there were never more than 90 personnel. Britain has played an active role in human rights in Nepal, as summarised in last year's FCO report, and I hope that we will be prepared to continue to make a contribution where we have the necessary expertise, as the noble Earl has already said.
	One of the most difficult aspects of the peace will be the cantonment of troops and the destruction of weapons. There, again, we might be able to offer some expertise, based on our experience in Northern Ireland, but there are other models in Asia that might offer closer parallels. In the southern Philippines, there is a ceasefire, monitored by Christian Aid and Initiatives for International Dialogue, with no UN involvement; and in Aceh, northern Sumatra, a successful deal was concluded last August between the Government and the Aceh Freedom Movement, which has been monitored by the European Union. So there are people within the region who could offer technical advice and assistance on how armed oppositions can make the transition to conventional political parties.
	There are also NGOs with experience of other peace-building situations and of Nepal. The Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue in Geneva, for instance, has been working in Nepal since 2000. It is now active in the Philippines and has made a significant contribution towards peace in Aceh, although the baton was finally taken over by the former Finnish President, Marti Ahtisaari. There is a wealth of talent on which the UN could call to help to draft the mechanisms for implementing the process of disarmament, demobilisation and rehabilitation (DDR) and ensuring that it is elaborated with the full participation of both sides. But, first, the parties have to agree on precisely what they will ask the UN to do. The wording of the invitation as regards weapons management is apparently a particularly sensitive issue, according to Deputy Prime Minister Amik Sherchan.
	At this stage, it might be helpful if the UN could provide the players with a paper describing the various models, including those which I have mentioned, and setting out a checklist of services that the UN might be able to offer. Since the Home Minister has said that the interim government will be formed only after a deal is concluded on arms management, this is a matter of some urgency.
	It is estimated that there are 100,000 to 200,000 internally displaced people as a result of the conflict, including 40,000 children, with at least 27,000 in the capital. So far, not many people have gone back to the villages because they are not certain that the peace will hold. A British NGO, Ockenden International, has been helping to build low-cost temporary housing for IDPs in Nepalgunj. The UNHCR has said that it will be ready to assist the Government of Nepal by providing relief assistance to IDPs if requested. I wonder whether the UK would make a commitment towards funding the additional help by the UNHCR so that resettlement of displaced villagers could be accelerated.
	Now is the time also to make a new effort on behalf of the 107,000 Bhutanese in refugee camps in the east of the country with no rights to work or to own land. It is welcome that the EU has just allocated €5 million to Nepal, of which €2 million is earmarked for the Bhutanese. But now that Bhutan has said that it is interested in resuming talks, could the EU also offer to help with that project?
	The elections are another key issue. Last Friday, the parties set themselves an ambitious timetable. They said that they would have an interim constitution within 15 days, that a new interim government would then be formed with Maoist participation, and that the date of elections for a constituent assembly would be agreed. If there is to be an electoral register, Nepal will need technical help and adequate funding. Is it within the terms of reference of the UN resident to explore with the parties the need for a preliminary feasibility study to identify what resources are needed and to prepare a bar chart setting out the activities that need to be undertaken, with a tentative timetable? Perhaps, again, we could offer technical help on that.
	Finally, is the role of the King still a matter of controversy? The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, has said that it is a sticking point for the Maoists. But the House of Representatives proclamation of 18 May deprived him of nearly all his executive powers, including his position as commander-in-chief, and many of the senior appointments made by the King have been revoked. The heads of the police and the national investigation department have been suspended. Twelve ambassadors have been recalled, including the ambassador to the UK, who is said to have refused the order. I wonder whether we have been notified of the withdrawal of his credentials and whether the Nepalese have appointed a replacement ambassador to the Court of St James.
	These actions have been taken following recommendations by a committee appointed to investigate human rights violations committed against activists during the period of intense repression since King Gyanendra came to power in tragic circumstances five years ago. Not all the committee's suggestions have been accepted. For instance, the head of the army remains in post. But the speed of the reforms is nevertheless impressive. Although there are differences of opinion about whether the King should remain in a purely ceremonial capacity, some Maoist leaders have gone as far as to say that they would like to put him on trial for atrocities that were committed under his direct authority. Although, strictly speaking, I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, that this is a matter for the constituent assembly, the wisest course of action that might be taken by the King is to go into exile while he still has the chance, which would remove at least one item of major controversy between the parties. That would put an end to arguments about the future of the monarchy and would allow the parties to concentrate on the real issues in front of them.

Baroness D'Souza: My Lords, I, too, congratulate and thank the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, on securing this debate at a very important and timely juncture. Within the space of three months earlier this year, Nepal moved from an absolute monarchy, through widespread and largely peaceful demonstrations, to an interim government. Nepal is now on the verge of a Maoist takeover; it really has been an astonishing time. We must take note of the power of the people to effect such radical change, in a country with no tradition of democracy, and to achieve this without undue violence. This responsible exercise in popular power is even more remarkable given the immediate political context in Nepal. There are lessons to be learned.
	Repression in Nepal since the bloody coup of 2005 has been severe, and the Government appeared impervious to the suffering of their people. The King and his officials are guilty of grave violations of human rights, including the arbitrary detention of thousands of critics, torture of detainees, disappearances and severe restrictions on freedom of expression. The army transgressed international human rights and humanitarian law in the war against Maoists. Key figures in this repression include the King himself, his senior ministers and top security officers, such as the chief of army staff and the inspector-general of police. Nor was the abuse solely the prerogative of the Government; the Maoists were guilty of kidnap, torture and murder. Conflict in the west of the country has caused hundreds of thousands to flee their villages and has limited access to food, healthcare and education.
	Nepal was in crisis. The combination of repression, poverty and hunger was predicted to come to a head and have implications for regional security. Once the pro-democracy protest had begun, the people expressed views about some of the more dysfunctional aspects of domestic and foreign policies and actions. For example, the international aid community was perceived by some Nepalese to have been less than even-handed by adopting a pro-government stance vis-à-vis the Maoists. The international community as a whole was discredited by its actions at the very beginning of the protest in its encouragement of the royal status quo and by pressuring parties into an unworkable compromise with the King. That the popular protest was so effective under these circumstances is, indeed, a triumph.
	It is worth summarising what the protests during March and April achieved. The mass defiance of curfews to march against the monarchy resulted in a decisive popular verdict and, ultimately, left the King with no option other than to surrender. Despite the suspicion of political parties which had been complicit with much of the repression in Nepal and were in the process of negotiating a deal with the King, the pro-democrats kept up the pressure to try to force the parties to provide representative leadership—with some encouraging results, I might add. Support from the Maoists was decisive, but it is important to note that people did not respond to the call for revolutionary insurrection, but took what they perceived as useful elements from the Maoist agenda. In so doing they sent a clear message to the Maoists that the power of the people is, and would continue to be, a constraint on rebels as well as on the palace.
	Given Nepal's geopolitical position, sandwiched between regional superpowers, it has long depended on foreign aid and support. However, the protests in April demonstrated to the outside world what we so often pay lip service to but do not necessarily believe: democratic change can only come from within a country. The Nepalese should gain confidence from their refusal to accept a foreign and unpopular compromise put forward by the international community.
	What now? Nepal is still very fragile. No one knows how a largely Maoist government will fare. Poverty and malnutrition are rife in this logistically difficult country. There is no tradition of democracy, and civil society is potentially divided. The transition from an exercise in popular power to stable government along democratic lines is not at all easy, as we have witnessed in the Balkans, for example. Several organisations have begun providing prescriptions for moving Nepal towards a more stable future. The International Crisis Group has identified four main priorities for Nepal. These are: peace and stability; agreeing a position for the King and controlling the army; planning for constitutional change; and responding to the call for transitional justice.
	The ICG also provides detailed recommendations to the international community. Overall it insists that there be a co-ordinated approach based on clearly stated and shared principles. Of these, the most important to my mind is an acknowledgment that in future the people of Nepal must be the drivers. Following the protests, parties, civil society groups and other representatives are now in a good position to contribute to domestic and foreign policies. In other words, it must be ensured that whatever the undertaking, there is a participatory system for addressing the underlying causes of the conflict of the past decade. This inclusive principle informs other recommendations such as the setting up of tribunals to investigate and punish the injustices of the past. This is always a sensitive issue and must have the people's consent and involvement if these tribunals are to succeed.
	If there is to be a follow-up to the 2002 London conference, again it requires participation in its planning. The current idea that civil society organisations begin this process by organising a preliminary conference in Kathmandu is surely one to support. Perhaps too an agreement could be reached with the international aid bodies on a mechanism to ensure that their projects are not socially or ethnically divisive, are subject to political analyses and focus on stability and peace initiatives in the immediate future. The ICG pulls no punches in setting out how the international community should further assist the peace process by disciplined relations with the monarch, such as meeting with the King only at the Government's request and limiting any fraternising with former royal contacts.
	Another area in which the ICG has made concrete recommendations is in international finance arrangements. The financial institutions should be encouraged to give a high priority to economic security and transparency rather than force ambitious reforms on the Government. They and others will have to be mindful that the Government are new and their legitimacy based on popular support for a peace process. The Nepalese Government do not as yet have full legislative and governance capacities.
	I know that this Government are keen to support Nepal and, as I understand it, a substantial aid package has been or will be agreed. That is very good news because the crucial task now is to support Nepal as it moves towards democracy, but at the same time, as a major donor in the region, to ensure that everything is directed towards peace and stability as the most urgent priority.

Lord Bramall: My Lords, I too would like to thank and congratulate my noble friend Lord Sandwich for keeping these critical developments in Nepal in your Lordships' minds, and indeed in that of the Government—just in case they feel, although I am sure they will not, that with all their other serious international preoccupations, what is happening in Nepal is but a small, local matter hardly worthy of a major focus in our foreign policy. Well, I strongly suggest that Nepal and what happens there is very important indeed to this country and I fully support what my noble friend said in his excellent and thoughtful speech about the Nepalese nation deserving more in the way of assistance, diplomacy and parliamentary time than it has had so far.
	For nearly 200 years the Nepalese people, particularly the hill people from the west and east of Nepal, have been true friends of this country, and indeed friends in our time of need. We were reminded by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, that the Nepalese were prepared openly, as its then ruler declared, in one of our darkest hours in 1940, to lose with us if that was what fate had in store. Happily, by instead providing an increasing number of incomparable Gurkha soldiers whenever asked, they were able to make major contributions to our ultimate victory in both world wars as well as in innumerable smaller but demanding campaigns, not least in those of the last half century; and suffering much hardship on our behalf, thus winning thousands of awards for gallantry. We therefore owe Nepal a great deal and have, to my mind, a particularly deep obligation to its people.
	Now an opportunity has arisen almost unexpectedly to stabilise and improve the security situation which has led to much loss of life and depressed still further the fragile economy and the tourist industry on which much of it depends, and to create for the first time a democratic society from which, incidentally, I believe the Nepalese people should, unlike some, because of their tolerance and restraint, be well able to benefit—just look at their great neighbour, India—and which, we hope, would be, and must be, less riven by the political corruption of the past. Surely we must do all we can to offer the hand of friendship. Moreover, we must offer it in a way which will help the various parties and factions including the seven-party alliance and the Maoists, so called presumably because their military activities have been conducted along the lines of the little red book—to come to a practicable and honourable accommodation with a new constituent assembly and ultimately, a truly democratic parliament. Of course, as the noble Earl has said, there will be hiccups along the way. But I am sure that Mr Koirala's brave step of bringing the Maoists into the centre of the constitutional negotiations—or perhaps one should say peace process—and eventually into government, must be warmly welcomed.
	I hope our Ministers and Foreign Office officials will not be too pedantic over the exact means and extent to which the rebels have put the armed struggle behind them. Whatever Ministers may say in public, historically we have repeatedly talked to those who, at that time, were called terrorists. Sensibly too, because it becomes sensible when both sides realise that they cannot win by military means—as the penny seems now to have dropped in Nepal—and when the injustices, the abuse of power and the historical inequalities at which the violence has been aimed have been adopted and championed by a wider, more popular and peaceful protest movement. This has also happened in Nepal.
	It is of course not for one faction or another—let alone anyone outside—to dictate what the future should hold in constitutional terms for the King. This must, as has been said, be a matter for the people in Nepal as a whole—perhaps by means of a referendum within the democratic system, once established. As the noble Earl suggested, it is possible that as an institution and on a purely constitutional basis, the monarchy, as accepted by the popular and respected late King Mahendra, might still remain as a unifying force for stability. But for the time being, his Majesty the present King seems to have sensibly decided to stay out of sight and do or say nothing. This is not a course I would advocate for the British Government. As the noble Earl has said, our long friendship and joint experience should enable us—without giving offence and in consultation with the Indian Government, who, one hopes, would recognise and not object to our links and who surely have a common interest in a stable Nepal—to take a positive role in assisting the process of reconciliation, in underwriting a durable ceasefire and free elections and constructing a representative government.
	Areas worth considering are increased aid packages to help with the key issues of poverty and resettlement, providing—if thought helpful—training, reconstruction and reform, of what would perhaps need to be something of a new model army, with some changes in its constitutional position and higher command and methods of working more in tune with the political changes and perhaps monitoring the ceasefire. For this we would be drawing on our experience of supervising similar changes in other parts of the world. We could also help with the training of a modern civil service.
	If implemented, all these efforts might be embraced in the historical obligation we may feel towards Nepal and its people. But of course in all this there would sensibly, and properly, be an element of self-interest as well. The Gurkha operation in Nepal—here I declare an interest, having been colonel of a Gurkha Rifle Regiment and one-time president of the Gurkha Brigade Association—is both longstanding and most important, if not at this time vital, to the British Army, which is invariably committed to doing too much with not enough combat units and whose recruiting and retention is delicate to say the least.
	In recent years the Gurkhas—their engineers, signals, infantry battalions and transport—have made a central contribution in every theatre of operation. We badly need to continue to recruit Gurkhas in Nepal—an operation, to which the noble Earl has already referred and which, incidentally, has not been affected or pressurised by the violence in the hills. At this critical time, the more that we can extend the hand of friendship—in practical not patronising terms, showing that we welcome the bold initiatives being taken—the more likely we are to persuade any new Government that the Gurkha operation will continue to bring benefit to Nepal, economically and for its international standing and prestige. The Indian Government, who have a massive Gurkha operation of their own far bigger than ours, will obviously be keen to maintain theirs.
	A wonderful opportunity has opened up—I hope that it is not only a fleeting one—which perhaps reflects the good sense of the Nepalese people. We should do our level best to encourage it, out of not only gratitude for what their country has done for us in the past but a genuine desire to see a more forward-looking democratic state, which sees it in its interests and to its advantage to respect its historical ties with this country, and to make it possible for Gurkhas to continue to serve in the British Army, in their own units and under their own officers.

Baroness Northover: My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, for securing the debate and opening it so effectively. As he mentioned, I was privileged to be part of the group of six which visited Nepal in March, supported by the Foreign Office and led most ably by Sir John Stanley, chair of the All-Party Group on Nepal. The cross-party group was very cohesive, and the visit extremely instructive. We visited at a fluid and unstable time. The King had suspended Parliament, the political parties seemed out in the cold, and the Maoists controlled much of the country. There was violence on all sides. The political parties had been calling, to no avail, for the restoration of democracy. They had made a pact with the Maoists calling for change. Was that weakness or strength? We have to hope for the latter.
	One of our tasks was to lend support to the call for change, in a visit carefully choreographed by the experienced ambassador there, Keith Bloomfield. None of us would have predicted that things would have moved so far and so fast—in merely a couple of months. It was not predicted that the demonstrations would be on the scale that they were. Danger and disaffection might have dissuaded people. There were major worries that the demonstrators would be greeted with massive oppression and loss of life. As the noble Baroness, Lady D'Souza, noted, although there was loss of life, it was not on the scale anticipated. One has to assume that the army and police at least saw the writing on the wall for the King and knew that it was not the time to clamp down hard on those who might be their future masters. The army wishes to be involved in UN peacekeeping exercises, and the fact that that would have been jeopardised if they had clamped down may also have played a useful role.
	Once those demonstrations began, the King might have been brutally deposed, but he was not. Certainly the UK Government did not quite predict the outcome, welcoming the King's moves prematurely and upsetting some of those who successfully pressed him much further. It also became clear that the political parties were not in control of the demonstrations. Civilians, civil society, the media, the judiciary, political parties, Maoists, the international community—the UN, the UK, India, the US and others—all came together to put pressure on the King, but it was the people of Nepal who took their lives into their hands and demonstrated as they did.
	Parliament has now been reinstated. The King has lost his executive power, Nepal has been declared a secular state, the Royal Nepalese Army has been brought under Parliament's control, and there will be an election to a constituent assembly, as demanded by the Maoists. That may well spell the end of the monarchy in whatever form. It is quite a change in a matter of months but, as others have said, the situation is far from stable. The King remains deeply unpopular, his son even more so. We met many leaders who were adamant that the monarchy had to go. Others thought that a constitutional monarchy along UK lines was possible. I note that Prime Minister Koirala has said as much and then been chided, even from within his own party. Perhaps that indicates the way things are going, and perhaps my noble friend Lord Avebury is right and the King should see where his personal future might best lie.
	The political parties themselves are disparate, and they held together with some difficulty. They do not have deep roots and, as the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, has said, were noted for their corruption. There has been a fear that even if democracy were restored, that might benefit only the haves and not the have-nots—those who had turned to the rebels. Clearly work has to be undertaken to ensure that the political parties are transparent and that they link to their constituents, so that the people of Nepal can see the benefits of democracy.
	There are different interpretations of the Maoists. Are they simply indigenous, or part of a sinister, wider movement? What is their funding? Are they influencing Maoists in India, and do they threaten stability there? The Americans are particularly concerned about a wider influence both on and of the Maoists. The consensus from others is that their access to arms and funds is relatively limited. Are the Maoists exploiting a situation for their own ends, seeking to depose the King and set up a dictatorial Maoist state? Or were their leaders themselves feeling excluded from the political scene and wanting to be brought in?
	We saw burnt-out lorries on roads. There was a bomb in Kathmandu when we were there. We heard of extortion and killings. Now the rebel leaders are walking freely in Kathmandu. The Maoists say they will demobilise but not yet disarm. Both sides have agreed to the involvement of the UN to monitor their arms, and we are familiar, from Northern Ireland and the Middle East, with which comes first, disarming or talking. It is surely not surprising that disarmament may have to wait until they feel they are part of the settlement, of the solution. When we were there, India indicated that it would not welcome a further UN presence. India plays a critical role, but the Nepalese have mixed feelings about that role. I would like the Minister to comment on that UN proposal.
	There are wider, more fundamental problems, which others have referred to, which have helped to underpin conflict in the first place. The vast majority of the Nepalese live in great poverty. There is not the economic miracle happening there that we see in India, although of course many are benefiting from that and crossing the border. If there are excluded people, you have an unstable society. War has further exacerbated that, and so the cycle goes on. We saw impressive DfID programmes, but gather that the budget has been reduced and may be reduced further. Again, I wonder if the Minister could comment.
	Among those who have been excluded in Nepal are women. This afternoon I met a very impressive lady, Lily Thapa, who chairs the Women for Human Rights Single Women's Group in Nepal. She reports new demonstrations in Kathmandu by women who are demanding participation in the current talks. There are no women at all on the draft constitutional committee. Women have been told that there are no suitably qualified women able to be participants at the peace table. That does not augur well for an inclusive settlement. The Maoists claim they stand for equality of the sexes. They claim they empower women—they use them as equal combatants in the conflict—but even they have only taken one woman into a very low-level committee. She does not attend the peace meetings.
	When we were in Nepal we heard the political parties say how women had suffered particularly in this conflict. We met some very impressive women leaders of NGOs. We met women lawyers and other experts. I note that in theory it has been agreed that the new Parliament should be one-third women, but how is that to be believed, and how is it to be delivered, if no women are included in these stages?
	Nepal is a stunningly beautiful country and has strong historic links with the UK. The Gurkhas, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, said, play a role way above their numbers in the British Army. It used to have a thriving tourist industry. It is on the rim of India, and should be able to benefit from the sub-continent powering forward, but its development has been fatally undermined by conflict. We should play our part in helping to support and encourage those who are negotiating for Nepal's future to think of that future as being won for all its citizens and not just for the ruling elites. It has to be inclusive of the rural as well as the urban areas, of all levels of society, and all ethnic groups, both sexes. That is too important for the country and the region not to get right.

Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I join others in thanking the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, for bringing this issue before us today and reminding us of the very significant interests which we in this country should have, and seek to have, in the affairs of Nepal. From my list of the most important interests, I offer three. First, the UK is already a significant donor to Nepal and I hope that it will be a bigger donor in the future. Secondly, Nepal, far from being a faraway country at the edge of global affairs is in fact at the centre of the emerging new world pattern between the awakening giant economies of rising Asia. We in Europe have to get used to the fact that the centre of gravity in world affairs is moving away from the Atlantic Basin and certainly from Europe. It is in the world of which Nepal is nearly at the centre that the fate of mankind and the pattern of world development will be settled. That means that we should watch very closely what is happening in those parts. Thirdly—the point has been eloquently made—Nepal is the home of the Ghurkhas who have done and continue to do so much to underpin and support UK security and nowadays the UK's contribution to world peace and stability, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, rightly reminded us—and as that rather moving statue in Whitehall by the Banqueting House reminds one every day when one walks past it. So we want to see the goals of the people of Nepal fulfilled: of securing a stable democracy, securing security and achieving prosperity. It is in our interests, to put it at its narrowest, to work to see that that is so.
	As the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, reminded us, Nepal now seems—one says this always with some hesitation—to be moving in the right direction after the very stormy and tragic events of recent years and recent times. There are signs of optimism that the civil leaders are working together. As a number of noble Lords have reminded us, there are talks now instigated between the parties—now the Government—and the Maoist insurgents. Having said that, we must be, as I am sure noble Lords are, open eyed about these insurgents. These are people who have acted brutally and with total disregard for human rights. These are people whose currency is kidnapping, torture and extortion. Their grip on the countryside is said still to be very tight indeed. One is entitled, therefore, to wonder just how deep their commitment to multi-party democracy can ever be or what they really want from their insistence on a new constitution. Indeed, one wonders what they can possibly stand for nowadays given that Maoism is a totally discredited political creed and that not even in China does it get more than a genuflection, having failed the people at every turn.
	It takes a big leap of faith—which I think that we should take—to believe that with that sort of track record the insurgents have really abandoned their goal of setting up a one-party, authoritarian state. Please can we never forget, although some people do, that merely participating in elections and getting in large numbers of votes, does not automatically make people into democrats?
	A vote for certain types is all the more likely to be the last free vote that people ever get. I know that we have already taken steps to focus our assistance programmes on strengthening democracy and governance as well as the protection of human rights, and that is good and sensible. Now, of course, we need to work with international partners ever more closely to help support the people of Nepal in their quest for a brighter future. Among those partners India has the key role—India, which used to be called the jewel in the crown 100 years ago and is now the jewel in the Commonwealth. Clearly, as in many other aspects of global affairs today, India is the key to the future. The ties that bind India and Nepal—economic, cultural and historical—are as strong as those between any two countries and mean that they are deeply vested in each other's success and are intimately familiar with each other. For those reasons we must obviously place the highest priority on consulting India on Nepal policy. I would very much like to hear how those consultations have gone so far, and what more is planned.
	Those who believe—as I confess I do—in the enduring and stabilising virtues of the institution of monarchy will, on balance, wish the King to stay. Different views have been expressed in this debate but I side with the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, in saying that this could be a basis for building an institution of monarchy that really assists the democratic process, as it does in many other parts of the world, including ours, and that any overly rapid dismissal or abolition of monarchical institutions can sometimes make things very much worse rather than better. But, of course, Nepal's future is in the hands of its own people and its political leaders and they are the ones who must take steps to meet the people's aspirations. I merely sum up by saying that we on this side of the House stand behind the people's rights to make that choice themselves through a free and fair political process and we will stand against any who attempt to deny them the freedom that is their right. I hope that that is the Government's position, too.

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, for raising the important issue of peace and democracy in Nepal and to all noble Lords who have taken part in a very significant debate. I admire the noble Earl's first-hand knowledge and the penetrating analysis that he has provided, to which I listened with great care, as I did to the points that others have raised, to which I shall try to respond.
	Like a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, I share the sense of debt to Nepal, and in particular to the Gurkhas. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, referred to an historic obligation, and I echo those words. The links that our forces continue to have under the broad basis of the 1947 tripartite agreement are fundamental as a basis on which the Gurkhas can proceed in their relationship with us. I also share the right approach of the noble Lord, Lord Howell, in locating the geopolitical importance of the region and I make my remarks in that context.
	It is no understatement to say that Nepal is at a critical point in its history. Following the tumultuous events in April when the Nepalese people rose up against the King's failed attempt at direct rule, there is now a realistic prospect of a resolution of the 10 year-old conflict there, and a return to peace, stability and genuine multi-party democracy. But there are very serious challenges ahead. The King's restoration of Parliament on 24 April was a victory for the democratic aspirations of the Nepalese people. The United Kingdom and the wider international community, including India, worked over many months in support of these aspirations. The new Government representing the seven party alliance face major challenges in securing a fully functioning democracy. The internal situation remains fragile but, as the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, said, bold steps have already been taken towards peace and reconciliation.
	Implementation of a verifiable and sustainable ceasefire with the Maoists is essential to underpin a comprehensive peace process in which the Maoists must abandon violence and rejoin the democratic mainstream, however ill that sits with their tradition and philosophy. The three-month ceasefire agreed by the parties must be made permanent. The Nepalese army needs to be brought under effective civil control and made fully accountable to democratic authorities. Civil society also needs strengthening to participate fully in elections to a new constituent assembly.
	We welcome the Government's peace talks with the Maoists on 26 May and 15 June, and the agreement to a 26-point code of conduct governing the ceasefire and paving the way for elections to the constituent assembly. Like the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, we also welcome the first talks on 16 June between Prime Minister Koirala and the Maoist leaders Prachanda and Bhattarai that resulted in an eight-point agreement on interim arrangements leading up to the constituent assembly elections. We also applaud the work of the political parties in remaining united on a common government platform. I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, that it is imperative that this unity is preserved over the difficult weeks ahead. The restoration of Parliament and the steps taken towards the constituent assembly elections present huge opportunities for a return to peace, democracy and stability in Nepal. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, rightly described that as moving in the right direction.
	I shall add nothing to what I said only a few days ago about the monarchy—it is a matter for the people of Nepal to decide, as several noble Lords have said.
	I also take completely the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover. There has been no focus on women's involvement and, therefore, on the inclusiveness for which she appeals, during this stage of the peace process. Both the Government and the Maoists have teams made up solely of men. Whatever proposals emerge for a future quota of 33 per cent of women in all public positions, there are only two women in the current Cabinet. However, women are more likely, we think, to be involved in the constituent assembly in the proposed second stage of the peace process. While we do not choose other people's representatives in any such bodies, the Department for International Development is considering funding a number of projects that specifically relate to women's inclusion in the democratic process.
	A number of noble Lords, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, and the noble Lord, Lord Howell, rightly raised concerns about Maoist intentions. We remain clear that the pursuit of political ends through violent means is absolutely unacceptable. For that reason, we need to proceed with great caution. The only way for the Maoists to gain acceptance as legitimate political actors is for them to take concrete steps towards a permanent end to the use of violence; there is no role for the gun in the pursuit of democracy. This will necessarily involve them laying down their arms for good, ceasing extortion, and working sincerely towards a durable peace process in which they become reintegrated into the democratic mainstream. The Maoists are well aware of our position from repeated public calls on them to renounce violence, to lay down their arms and to rejoin the democratic mainstream.
	The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, asked about the United States' position, and I am not aware of any change in that. It continues to designate the Maoists as a terrorist group. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, rightly, made a point with great force about the relationship with India and its role in the region and Nepal. It has the greatest influence there and we have sought a continuous and close dialogue with it. We routinely share analysis and thoughts on the steps that can be taken towards a resolution of the crisis. We both have in view multi-party democracy and the Maoists being brought firmly into that purpose. Perhaps I may add that there has been no change in the policy whereby the British ambassador and his senior staff do not have official meetings with Maoists. But unlike the United States, the UK has not designated them as a terrorist group and has, therefore, not excluded their leadership from the UK. That might address one of the thoughts so tellingly offered to us by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall.
	Regarding ministerial contacts with the new Government, the EU welcomed Nepal's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Mr KP Oli, for talks in Brussels on 15 June. My right honourable friend the Minister of State, Mr McCartney, also met Mr Oli in Geneva on 20 June. Another right honourable friend, Dr Howells, expects to visit Nepal in the early autumn to continue discussions.
	It is clear that any elections held in Nepal, whether to a constituent assembly or to Parliament, will require international supervision. The Government of Nepal will need to decide what assistance they require from the international community in this respect. The UK itself will not be looking to take on this operation, but there may well be scope for the UK to volunteer election monitors as part of any internationally co-ordinated effort under the United Nations, or through the European Union.
	In order to cement the ceasefire and facilitate early elections, Nepal may want to take advantage of the assistance of an independent and credible external partner like the United Nations, whatever the reservations of some of its neighbours. In their talks on 16 June, the seven party alliance and the Maoists agreed to request help from the United Nations in arms monitoring and management. We are pursuing with the Nepalese and our international partners, including India, how such external facilitation or monitoring could work. We know that India continues to have sensitivities in this regard which need to be addressed. But, as several noble Lords have remarked, the UN already plays a significant role in Nepal, including through the Kathmandu office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, that, as a result of the 16 June discussions and UN efforts, we are working with the Nepalese and all international partners on those objectives. I am not sure that a long menu of alternative ways of dealing with it would stimulate a rapid enough response, as people pondered them all, but I understand the intellectual integrity of the noble Lord's point.
	Several noble Lords—the noble Lord, Lord Howell, in particular mentioned it as an interest—raised UK assistance to the new Government, especially through DfID, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover. As I said in the House on 15 June, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for International Development is currently considering, with other donors and UK government departments, how best to respond to the new situation, including if and when to increase assistance to credible, accountable organisations. I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, that poverty reduction is an important priority. Consideration is also being given to financial and technical support to the peace process through the interdepartmental Global Conflict Prevention Pool. It is too early to make formal commitments. The total planned bilateral DfID assistance for 2006–07 is £30 million.
	I shall raise the points of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, about funding for resettlement and other things. But in the spirit in which he made his point, I tell him that EU help for every shortfall may be beyond the EU's means. There are so many countries, with so many pressing demands. Any extension of work will require more money. It is worth arguing for, however, and I shall carry that point forward.
	The EU is also considering what peace-building support it can provide to Nepal, and the UK expects the European Commission to consider positively any requests by the Nepalese Government for assistance. Possibilities include support for elections, election observers, ceasefire monitoring and technical assistance with transitional justice. We are considering help with security sector reform, so that the security forces can be brought under effective civil control in a way which ensures their co-operation with the new Government. We will consider requests put to us by the new Government, but we are not aware that they are making any request for an extension of UN mandates at this time.
	In an accurate description of the human rights violations and those responsible, the noble Baroness, Lady D'Souza, recognised the engagement of the people in this process. She said that the people must be the drivers, and I strongly agree. Some noble Lords have rightly raised these human rights issues, which remain a cause of concern. Despite their commitment to human rights and multi-party democracy, the Maoists continue with abductions, extortion and other grave human rights abuses. The Nepal Army must also be fully accountable. Reports of illegal detentions and disappearances in 2003, as well as unlawful killings during the recent protests, must be fully investigated. We strongly support the work of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Kathmandu. We will continue to encourage the new Government to deal seriously with human rights violations, and help them with capacity building to meet that challenge. It was said in the debate that that is simply a matter of justice, and I fully agree.
	There are better prospects for peace and democracy now in Nepal than there have been for many years, but there are also serious challenges ahead. The UK is a historic friend and partner of Nepal. I warmly welcome the resumption of interparliamentary contacts with Nepal, including the recent visit in which the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, and the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, participated. I also welcome their kind words about the positive role of our embassy and Ambassador Bloomfield during the recent troubles, and the support provided by the Department for International Development. We will continue to offer whatever assistance we can for the peace-building process and we will keep staffing and other resource levels under review. I urge all the actors to take advantage of the new opportunity to build a sustainable peace and a stable multi-party democracy. That was the burden of the requirement that the noble Baroness, Lady D'Souza, put to us. The people of Nepal have suffered much over the past 10 years; they deserve better and they deserve our help.

House adjourned at nineteen minutes before seven o'clock.

Thursday, 22 June 2006.